There’s a chemo shortage
This is disturbing – a shortage of chemo drugs, as well as other generic medications. The reason seems at first to be one of those “unintended consequences” things:
In interviews, more than a dozen current and former executives affiliated with the generic drug industry described many risks that discourage a company from increasing production that might ease the shortages.
They said prices were pushed so low that making lifesaving medicines could result in bankruptcy. It’s a system in which more than 200 generic drugmakers compete, at times fiercely, for contracts with three middleman companies that guard the door to a vast number of customers.
In some cases, generic drugmakers offer rock-bottom prices to edge out rivals for coveted deals. In other instances, the intermediaries — called group-purchasing organizations — demand lower prices days after signing a contract with a drugmaker.
The downward pressure on prices — no doubt often a boon to the pocketbooks of patients and taxpayers — is intense. The group purchasers compete against one another to offer hospitals the lowest-priced products, which intermediary companies say also benefits consumers. They earn fees from drugmakers based on the amount of medications the hospitals buy.
“The business model is broken,” said George Zorich, a pharmacist and retired generic drug industry executive. “It’s great for G.P.O.s. Not great for drug manufacturers, not great for patients in some cases.”
But then we have the following, which seems to be something else entirely:
Prices fell in recent years for two of the three drugs that Ms. Scanlan was initially offered to treat her cancer. During those years, Intas Pharmaceuticals, a generics giant in India, steadily gained market share as other companies left, according to data from the U.S. Pharmacopeia, a nonprofit that tracks drug shortages.
But the company had to halt U.S. production to deal with quality issues that the F.D.A. cited after a surprise inspection of one of its sprawling plants in India. Inspectors had discovered quality-control staff workers shredding and throwing acid on key records. The manufacturing shutdown set off a supply shock in February that would be felt nationwide.
Outsourcing production to places such as India is another way to save money, but it’s at the risk of quality control, as well as dependence on other countries. We learned a lot about that during the COVID years as well.
[NOTE: The article – from The NY Times – is sprawling and rather poorly written. But it does seem to be describing a troubling situation, although the causes seem to be multiple and somewhat murky.]
Why should there only be three companies which distribute pharmaceuticals? Something fishy here. It’s the Sulzberger Birdcage Liner, so assume they’re working some angle.
But, but Big Pharma is eeeeevil! No, wait, DrugCo has suggested they need someone with my distinguished record as a consultant soon, so Pharma good! Coalition to buy at Low prices good! Coalition to sell, bad!
In a high trust society you don’t have to stand aside the production line to be sure the plant manager isn’t dumping in sand to lower costs. India and China are not high trust societies.
So what we have here is what I believe is known in common parlance as a…cartel.
Wait. Price controls are causing shortages? How can that be? Oh, right. That is the known outcome of price controls.
Art Deco, my answer would be that government regulation is at minimum part of why there are only three distributors of pharmaceutical drugs, probably a big part. There may be other reasons but I bet that is in there.
I will also guess that more regulations will be the NYT’s preferred solution.
Very similar to the ongoing — though no longer in the news — baby formula shortage.
Government regulates & limits the # of co’s allowed to manufacture & sell a product.
Government is awful at determining what is needed, & how to actually enforce quality control such that we don’t suffer shortages.
No shortage of “Biden”‘s outright lies and deceptions, though….
Try wrapping yer heads around this one:
“Biden DHS asks Supreme Court to let border agents cut Texas’s razor-wire fence”—
https://justthenews.com/government/security/biden-dhs-asks-supreme-court-let-border-agents-cut-texass-razor-wire-fence
Key lie:
“The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to permit it to cut a razor-wire fence the state of Texas placed along the Mexican border.
“The government has argued that the fence interferes with federal border enforcement activities and that the fence presents a safety risk to illegal immigrants crossing the border through the Rio Grande river….” [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]
Yep, the border is secure alright! (And if it’s not, well that’s just the GOP’s fault….)
No one (in the larger view) ever discusses the effects of Obama Care on all of the medical topics. Odd… or not…
Third world countries have third world employees with third world priorities ( hint: me, me, me). As G.S. says above, you’ve gotta watch ’em like a hawk.
In my experience, the companies using far eastern assembly who have decent quality are those with western QC employees on site.
How to fix this? My first thought is to move the manufacture back onshore. This, however, begs the question of why was the manufacture moved in the first place. There are many factors but the main one for pharma (and any chemical) is safety regs, which are both expensive and essentially non-existent over “there”. Can you say “Bhopal”, boys and girls? Solve that issue and those operations will return.