How to address medicines shortages: Findings from a cross-sectional study of 24 countries

Abstract

Highlights Several countries affected by medicine shortages reacted by implementing measures. Several new measures were introduced in 2020, particularly in COVID-19 times. Nearly all countries use registers which help to prepare and react. Measures aim to protect national markets. Solutions at European level are yet to be implemented.

COVID-19 health policy evaluation: integrating health and economic perspectives with a data envelopment analysis approach

“…DEA is an established and widely used method for efficiency measurement in healthcare management [ 71 , 79 , 81 , 118 , 135 ]. The evaluation approach integrates different levels of governmental decision-making and from a cross-country, also chosen by, e.g., Vogler and Fischer [ 128 ],: (1) factors considering pre-pandemic government health strategies measurable through governmental expenditures, (2) pre-pandemic characteristics of the respective health system representing health resources, (3) indicators expressing the consequences of governmental interventions during the COVID-19 outbreak on the economy, and (4) governmental interventions against COVID-19 taking into account the country-specific state of the pandemic. While our input factors are chosen to quantify the direct costs that are necessary for the treatment of a patient (health expenditures, number of doctors and hospital beds), the output factors are not quantified in monetary terms but as therapeutic outcomes and presented as clinical or physical quantities (infections, deaths, recoveries) because we wanted to consider patient-relevant measures.…”

Do Medicine Shortages Reduce Access and Increase Pharmaceutical Expenditure? A Retrospective Analysis of Switzerland 2015-2020

“…Studies that use repository data, addressing predominantly North America and to some degree Europe, identified the scope of shortages. [5][6][7]16,17 Factors associated with how medicine shortages reduce access include the duration of shortages, the therapeutic and product-specific areas affected, and product prices. For the United States, even after the introduction of the Safety and Innovation Act in 2012, the duration of shortages was not reduced.…”

Combining radial and continuous flow synthesis to optimize and scale-up the production of medicines

“…[2][3][4]6 On-demand production can help avoid drug shortages compensating for unexpected fluctuations in API availability. 1 Flow processes not only facilitate scale-up, but ensure reproducibility while transferring the synthesis from the discovery to the production stage.…”

“…For example, R-C refers to a solution starting in the RDS and ending in the collection vessel. d) Reagents and pathway for the radial synthesis of paracetamol(1). e) Reagents and pathway for the radial synthesis of nifedipine (2).…”