Drug shortages in US & UK?
Oct 4th 2011, 3:18 pm
#1
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Drug shortages in US & UK?
I was listening to public radio yesterday morning. There was an article about chronic shortages of certain drugs in the US, a situation that has been developing for about a decade apparently.
According to one of the guests on the article, the primary reason of these shortages in the US is that drug company 'a' stops making one of these drugs, usually for business reasons (not profitable *enough*) and so the supplier base that is left has to pick up the slack - and gets to the point where it can't meet demand. The guest did note that this tends to be for 'older' drugs - I guess where the patent situation now allows for greater competition and prices are driven down...
Aside from the obvious politics of the richest nation in the world not being able to get enough of the drugs it needs etc etc... I'm curious - does something similar exist in the UK and elsewhere? How big & old is such a phenomenon in these other countries? How, if at all, is it impacting care of individuals?
Just curious!
cheers
HTS
According to one of the guests on the article, the primary reason of these shortages in the US is that drug company 'a' stops making one of these drugs, usually for business reasons (not profitable *enough*) and so the supplier base that is left has to pick up the slack - and gets to the point where it can't meet demand. The guest did note that this tends to be for 'older' drugs - I guess where the patent situation now allows for greater competition and prices are driven down...
Aside from the obvious politics of the richest nation in the world not being able to get enough of the drugs it needs etc etc... I'm curious - does something similar exist in the UK and elsewhere? How big & old is such a phenomenon in these other countries? How, if at all, is it impacting care of individuals?
Just curious!
cheers
HTS
Oct 4th 2011, 4:00 pm
#2
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Posts: 2
Re: Drug shortages in US & UK?
Have you tried ordering them from Canada?
Oct 4th 2011, 4:08 pm
#3
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Re: Drug shortages in US & UK?
I was looking to see what specific drugs were mentioned, here is a link to the story:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011...critical-drugs
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011...critical-drugs
Oct 5th 2011, 1:46 am
#4
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Re: Drug shortages in US & UK?
I was reading the other day that a Sanofi-Aventis plant in Germany that manufactures the disposable pens for an insulin called Apidra had a technical problem and the production of pens is stopped. They estimate that by the end of the first quarter next year that they will have normal supply but since the plant is (I believe) the only one that makes the pen there is a shortage in some countries and possibly soon it will be completely unavailable for a while, especially if people stockpile. They are making bucket loads of the insulin, just the pen that a lot of it goes in is not there.
Oct 5th 2011, 2:24 am
#5
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Re: Drug shortages in US & UK?
I was listening to public radio yesterday morning. There was an article about chronic shortages of certain drugs in the US, a situation that has been developing for about a decade apparently.
According to one of the guests on the article, the primary reason of these shortages in the US is that drug company 'a' stops making one of these drugs, usually for business reasons (not profitable *enough*) and so the supplier base that is left has to pick up the slack - and gets to the point where it can't meet demand. The guest did note that this tends to be for 'older' drugs - I guess where the patent situation now allows for greater competition and prices are driven down...
Aside from the obvious politics of the richest nation in the world not being able to get enough of the drugs it needs etc etc... I'm curious - does something similar exist in the UK and elsewhere? How big & old is such a phenomenon in these other countries? How, if at all, is it impacting care of individuals?
Just curious!
cheers
HTS
According to one of the guests on the article, the primary reason of these shortages in the US is that drug company 'a' stops making one of these drugs, usually for business reasons (not profitable *enough*) and so the supplier base that is left has to pick up the slack - and gets to the point where it can't meet demand. The guest did note that this tends to be for 'older' drugs - I guess where the patent situation now allows for greater competition and prices are driven down...
Aside from the obvious politics of the richest nation in the world not being able to get enough of the drugs it needs etc etc... I'm curious - does something similar exist in the UK and elsewhere? How big & old is such a phenomenon in these other countries? How, if at all, is it impacting care of individuals?
Just curious!
cheers
HTS
Oct 5th 2011, 2:58 pm
#6
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 104
Re: Drug shortages in US & UK?
Opiate based drugs are currently in short supply due to a major poppy blight in Afghanistan last year.
