UPDATE 1-KV Pharma suspends shipment of tablets, shares tank

Dec 23 (Reuters) - KV Pharmaceutical (KVa.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said it advised the U.S. health regulators that it has voluntarily suspended all shipments of all Food and Drug administration approved tablet form drugs, sending its shares down to their 12-year low.

Shares of the company fell as much as 40 percent to a low of $3.25 Tuesday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company said it is also recalling a single production lot of Hydromorphone HCl 2 mg tablets, a pain management drug, following the report of an oversized tablet.

The company said it is unable to determine when the distribution of the tablet form products will resume and added that the management expects the operating results to be materially adversely affected.

KV Pharmaceutical, which fired its CEO earlier this month, has already recalled several products related to similar issues of oversized tablets and is facing a series of lawsuits that allege its officers of making false statements to inflate the stock price.

Class A shares of the company fell to a low of $3.25, before recovering slightly to trade at $3.28 Tuesday afternoon. (Reporting by Anuradha Ramanathan in Bangalore; Editing by Jarshad Kakkrakandy)