Drug shortages keep on growing. Older, injectable medicines are among the most vulnerable
Erin Fox has tracked drug shortages for more than 20 years, and she sees no easy solutions for what has become a record run
Erin Fox has tracked drug shortages for more than 20 years, and she sees no easy solutions for what has become a record run.
Total active shortages hit an all-time high of 323 in this year’s first quarter, according to the University of Utah Drug Information Service. That’s up about 86% from a 10-year low of 174 last reached in 2017.
There were 48 new shortages recorded this year through March, according to the data, published by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
Still, Fox also sees positive news developing. The associate chief pharmacy officer at University of Utah Health spoke recently with The Associated Press. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
A: Unfortunately, no. We haven’t necessarily solved some of the root causes.
We have, overall, relatively few manufacturers. (The U.S. Food and Drug Administration) halted inspections during COVID. Now they’re back, at factories that maybe haven’t been inspected for five or six years. They’re finding some things to fix. Those fixes can take anywhere from 6 to 18 months for production to get fully back on schedule.
Meanwhile, other companies don’t necessarily have the capacity to ramp up production to make up the difference.
It’s not the FDA’s fault. We want them to find those quality deficits. But when FDA goes out looking all at once, it can be pretty disruptive.
A: Generic, injectable hospital drugs or older drugs. They are usually pretty low cost. There’s not a lot of resilience in the supply chain for another company to make up the difference.
We saw all those chemotherapy shortages last year in part
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