Drug shortages in European countries: a trade-off between market attractiveness and cost containment?

BMC Health Services Research

Steven Simoens¹  Minne Casteels¹  Isabelle Huys¹  Kim Pauwels¹ 

[1]KU Leuven Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences, Onderwijs en Navorsing 2, Herestraat 49, P.O. Box 521, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

关键词: Health policy;    Drug supply;    Drug shortage;   

Others  :  1126153
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6963-14-438

 received in 2013-12-18, accepted in 2014-09-18,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Drug shortages are a global problem. While extensively studied in the United States, numbers about drug shortages in European countries are scarce. This study aims to collect and present data about drug shortages in European countries.

Methods

A reporting template for the collection of data about drug shortages was designed based on a literature search. Countries offering a reporting system for drug shortages such as Belgium, the Netherlands, England, Italy, France, Germany and Spain were included in this study. Data about the characteristics of the drugs in shortage and the causes of the shortage were collected from publicly available online reporting systems. Descriptive analyses were performed.

Results

Drug shortages included in the considered reporting systems can be characterized as branded, oral drugs that affect different disease domains. When considering essential medicines and oncology drugs, generic injectables are more involved. Causes for drug shortages are largely underreported. In case the cause is known, production problems take the lead.

Conclusions

Reporting of drug shortages in Europe needs to be standardized and more transparency about the reasons for drug shortage is required to investigate the problem. A link between production problems and market attractiveness and market capacity is recognized to be at the root of drug shortages in U.S. Such insights are highly lacking in Europe. Monitoring of the effect of national and European health policies on the sustainability of the drug market is required to present fundamental solutions and to tackle the problem of drug shortages in Europe.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Pauwels et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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