A drug called BCG is effective against bladder cancer, but there is a worldwide shortage of the drug because of manufacturing problems. Thousands of patients who need the drug and their oncologists are left to either go with another, less effective treatments or are scrambling to find a source for the drug.
This is just one example of the persisting problem of drug shortages in the United States. According to the University of Utah's Drug Information Service, there are 265 different drugs that are in short supply, a number that is up 74% from 2010.
The drugs that are or have been in short supply range from antibiotics to cancer treatments to bags of sterile saline fluid, an item that is used almost every minute in a hospital.
The causes of these shortages are varied. Many companies that make drugs and other products do not have excess production facilities. If a factory or part of a factory has to be shut down for any reason, it means that whatever product was being made is suddenly on short supply. Often, the drugs that are hit with shortages are the ones that are hard to make and off-patent.
Many of the shortages are due to efforts by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to increase inspections of factories that make medications, according to the Wall Street Journal. The FDA is working with manufacturers to try to spot shortages in advance and to speed up approvals of manufacturing upgrades.
Any problem in a factory can lead to a shutdown. In the case of BCG, which was in short supply globally, an older factory in Toronto had to shut down due to a mold infestation and the only other company that makes BCG had production delays. One company boosted its production, but then had to stop when problems were detected in the factory. Other drugs are in short supply because of recalls due to contamination or because of an increase in demand.
In many cases, physicians and hospital must switch to a drug or treatment that is not as effective or must choose which patients get a hard-to-obtain drug.
