European Medicines Agency publishes list of medicines shortages and supply issues hitting Europe

 November 5 ,2013 | By Márcio Barra

The European Medicines Agency has launched yesterday, November 4^th, a public catalogue containing information on supply shortages of medicines that affect more than one European Union Member state. While the catalogue does not provide a complete overview of all medicine shortages occurring in the EU – most drug shortages are dealt with at a national level by each country National Competent Authority – it provides recommendations to patients and health professionals on how to gain access to the affected product.

The catalogue also includes information on the reason and extent of the shortage and its current status.

Drug shortages in Europe

February 27, 2013 | By Márcio Barra

From the news here at Portugal, I assumed that drug shortages were a mostly Portugal-centric affair, caused by parallel import (as Portugal has one of the lowest drug prices in Europe) and the severe debt crisis. However, from the few articles I’ve read here and there, this issue is threatening the whole EU, not because of parallel import situations (these are affecting mostly countries with reference pricing systems), but mostly of underfunded health systems and of the passing of the new falsified medicines directive (2011/62/EU) back in January, amongst other issues. This directive states that only countries that are part of a GMP compliant list (dubbed the white list) can import actives and other substances to Europe. India, China, America and Japan don’t subscribe to the white list, a rather dire situation seeing as most actives are sourced from these countries.

Now, the European association oh Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) published in February 21 results of a recent survey conducted in over 300 respondents from 27 countries, where it shows that 99% of the questioned hospital pharmacists experienced medicines shortages in 2012. The survey also uncovered that 63% of hospital pharmacists report medicines shortages to be a weekly, sometimes daily, occurrence.

On this topic, please stay tuned for my article on drug shortages in Portugal! 

Sources:

European association oh Hospital Pharmacists

Economist

Regulatory focus