2023-10-10 10:01:29
A phenomenon that surrounds medications, and that I have not written much about is shortage, that is, problems with the supply of drugs. That there are treatments – many of them necessary and effective– does not mean that they are all and always available to the population that uses them.
A decade ago the The University of Utah estimated that 36% of drug shortages detected in USA They were related to manufacturing reasons; 8.3% was supply/demand related; 7.8% was attributed to product discontinuation; and 3.9% to the absence of raw Materials. However, in 44%, no specific reasons were reported.
That’s in the USA, but what about in Europe, what happens? Here the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (AEFH) found that 52.4% of drug shortages are related to the manufacturer having a single (or a limited number of) suppliers; 43.7% is due to shortages of raw materials; 43.7% is due to quality problems in manufacturing; and 41.7% was related to market size (small country with limited market).
All this is curious because, in general, pharmaceutical companies have contracted measurement instrumentation services (one of the leading companies is, for example, Endress+Hauser) that help guarantee production continuity and efficient maintenance. That is, these measurement services help the pharmaceutical industry not to lower production of those necessary treatments.
If it exists then shortage of drugs, several questions must be raised:
-Generally, there is shortage of “excessively” cheap medicines that leave little benefit.
-83% of Spanish hospitals suffer from drug shortages and the conditions must be clarified. legal responsibilities that arise from these situations, since one thing is that they do not have the last medication questioned, and another that missing the essential.
-How is it possible that in our modern health system, provided by a powerful pharmaceutical industryAre some necessary treatments missing for quite some time?
-The problem about the NON-availability of drugs in an affordable and safe way has a impact on health status, in quality of life and mortality. What are the consequences of discontinuing drug supply?
The issue is not new. I remember in 2008! I wrote a post because the platform for pharmacists had just been born You can’t play with my health!which warned that
las pressures from certain pharmaceutical companies are the cause that citizens cannot find their medicines in pharmacies.
And they continued:
direct sales, double priceone for those medicines that the wholesaler demonstrates that they dispense in the national territory and another higher one for those that are exported to other countries, selective contracts with distributors that, in the opinion of each laboratory, cover the needs of the entire society, discriminating against those with less market share or the establishment of quotas in the supply of drugs to wholesalers, are some of the tricks that pharmaceutical multinationals are subjecting the Spanish distribution system to.”
The controversy was beginning to break out at that time. The press covered news about drug shortages. The Business Federation of Spanish Pharmacists (FEFE) complained to the National Competition Commission deficiencies in the supply of medicines from several laboratories that meant that they did not reach pharmacies.
Today things have changed for the better. The Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) is the body in charge of taking the necessary measures so that, when these tensions occur in the supply chain, we try to ensure that no patient has their treatment interrupted.
Well, she offers a list of drug presentations that currently have supply problems. And also problems of this type that have been resolved in recent months.
It must be remembered that the cessation of supply of a medicinal product by the marketing authorization holder may be subject to a sanctioning procedure by the AEMPS.
Related
#Drug #shortages #put #peoples #lives #risk