Drug bottlenecks: Apothekerkongress does no longer see an clean answer

In Austria, it's far presently not viable to question the stock tiers of medicinal products. Generics are especially regularly laid low with bottlenecks.

There is not any short solution in sight for the bottlenecks in the deliver of drug treatments. The EU is just beginning to harmonize rules and set up facts systems. In Austria, too, there is no gadget for quickly querying stock tiers at pharmaceutical wholesalers and pharmacies, it turned into said on Friday evening on the celebratory congress of the Austrian Chamber of Pharmacists (75th anniversary) in Vienna.

“Today we have 588 products in the check in of supply bottlenecks. There is a parallel export ban for 360 drug treatments,” said Günter Waxenecker, the brand new head of the AGES clinical marketplace supervisory authority. 40 percentage of those capsules relate to indications for the worried device, which include conventional painkillers. 28 percentage of the drugs currently affected by bottlenecks are intended for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases (e.G. High blood pressure). 21 percentage account for antibiotics.

Causes of drug shortages

The causes of the issues are manifold. In 2019, 40 percent of the sector’s active pharmaceutical components were sourced from China. For greater than 50 percentage of those substances there are best fewer than five manufacturing certificate. This manner that production is focused in very few locations.

According to surveys at European stage, more than 60 percentage of drug deliver bottlenecks are due to production-related troubles. Then, as an instance, there may be a unexpected extra call for of 18 percentage.

While the producers of imitation pills, i.E. Of so-referred to as widely wide-spread drugs after the patent of authentic tablets has expired, time and again emphasize how tons money their use saves the medical health insurance organizations, the charge stress truely had a bad effect on the safety of deliver here specially. Waxenecker: “It has a tendency to have an effect on products that had been first registered greater than ten years ago.”

How the bottlenecks of the EU will be solved

80 percentage of drug deliver bottlenecks in the EU can be alleviated if no longer eliminated through changing products between member states. But the data is missing. “There are no structures in Austria to question the shares of (pharmaceutical; word) wholesalers and pharmacies. There is not any information about the prescription exercise inside the hooked up (doctor’s office; observe) and within the health center zone,” defined the professional. To his expertise, this does not exist in any EU us of a.

With the new pharmaceutical regulation envisaged via the EU Commission, for which a suggestion was currently supplied, the information from the member states should at least be higher harmonized and made greater reachable. As a end result, a habitual, accompanying monitoring of the fame of pharmaceutical deliver within the EU can be advanced from a precautionary machine for primary crises.

Sudden surge in antibiotics request

However, it's going to in all likelihood no longer work in the future without countrywide garage for vital drug treatments. “Since 2009, Finland has had medicines saved for a duration of between three and ten months. This trouble has now not come to be a priority there,” stated Waxenecker.

A Dutch examine found that storing drugs recognized as essential for four months of use would prevent seventy five percentage of shortages. With storage for 5 months, the achievement price rose to 85 percent.

Despite all efforts, but, one factor need to not be forgotten: According to the professional, on the turn of the 12 months 2022/2023, an incredibly huge wide variety of acute infectious sicknesses – because of a “trap-up impact” after the Covid 19 pandemic with lockdowns, mask requirements and so forth. – led to one sudden boom within the demand for antibiotics by a thing of 4 to five. This can hardly ever be counteracted and the query arises as to whether the sicknesses were honestly usually bacterial infections for which antibiotic remedy can be indicated.