Health Canada Recalls Two Lots of MAR-Amlodipine After Bottles Found to Contain Midodrine Tablets

On February 7, 2026, Health Canada and Marcan Pharmaceuticals Inc. issued a public advisory and recall for two lots of MAR-Amlodipine 5 mg tablets (DIN 02371715, lots 2472021 and 2472021A, expiry July 2027) after confirming that some bottles labelled as amlodipine actually contained midodrine 2.5 mg tablets. Amlodipine is a calcium channel blocker used to treat hypertension and angina; midodrine is an alpha-1 agonist used to treat orthostatic hypotension. A patient taking midodrine in place of their prescribed amlodipine could experience a dangerous rise in blood pressure, while a patient who received a mixed-up bottle in place of midodrine could experience severe hypotension, fainting, or a dangerously slow heart rate — either direction carries real risk of organ damage.

Telling the two tablets apart

Practice guidance for pharmacists

• Pull and visually inspect any remaining stock of DIN 02371715, lots 2472021 and 2472021A, before it reaches another patient — do not rely on the outer label alone.
• Proactively contact patients who were dispensed amlodipine from these lots and ask them to check their tablets against the shape and marking description before their next dose, rather than waiting for them to notice on their own.
• Document and quarantine any affected bottles returned to the pharmacy, and report the incident to Marcan Pharmaceuticals and to Health Canada through the Canada Vigilance program.
• Counsel any patient who may have taken midodrine in error to watch for and report severe headache, chest pain, dizziness, fainting, or a markedly elevated home blood pressure reading, and to seek urgent care if symptomatic.
• Review shelf placement for look-alike/sound-alike risk — a manufacturing-side packaging error is outside the pharmacy's control, but a pharmacy stocking both products should confirm its own storage is not compounding the risk.

Packaging-related recalls involving a wrong drug inside a correctly labelled bottle are rare but high-severity, and this is the type of error most likely to be caught only when a patient or pharmacist visually checks the tablets rather than the label. Pharmacists dispensing any Marcan Pharmaceuticals product should watch Health Canada's recall database for follow-up communications, since manufacturer-side packaging investigations sometimes broaden to additional lots after the initial notice.