The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has sent a letter to a Lexington, Kentucky, pharmacy that compounds drugs for horses notifying the firm that tests show that some of its drug products are "adulterated and misbranded" under the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

In a letter to Wickliffe Pharmaceutical Inc. and its president/owner Jacqueline S. Bernard, the FDA's district office in Cincinnati, Ohio, said an investigation of the pharmacy was initiated after two Kentucky horses died after receiving an oral paste containing toltrazuril and pyrimethamine compounded by the pharmacy. While the investigation was underway, the letter states, the agency received a report that eight horses in Florida had suffered adverse reactions after they were treated with a "suspension drug product compounded by your pharmacy that also contained toltrazuril and pyrimethamine."

Subsequent tests of two samples obtained from the pharmacy showed concentration levels between 81-83% of the declared concentration levels. In another test, the drugs contained 3.74% and 2,380% of the declared concentration levels.

Wickliffe has been sued by owners of at least three Thoroughbreds hospitalized after receiving a compounded drug from the company alleging their horses at an Ocala, Florida, training center were hospitalized after receiving a compounded drug to treat or prevent equine protozoal myeloencephalitis