Public health researchers call for new measures to protect pharmaceutical supply chain

A new report led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reveals that drug shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic underscore weaknesses in the nation’s pharmaceutical supply and distribution systems. The authors note that increased hospital demand for COVID-19-related drugs, such as sedatives and vasopressors, is a key factor behind the shortages, along with major disruptions on the supply side. The authors note that many global facilities that manufacture drug ingredients and drugs shut down. In addition, the pandemic caused global shipping ports to close or curb their flow of goods, FDA officials could not inspect manufacturing facilities overseas, and some foreign governments restricted drug exports to preserve their domestic supplies. Furthermore, FDA and other entitles did not have adequate systems in place for tracking drug shortages, in particular at the local level. The researchers found the U.S. government also lacked the ability to quickly shift supplies of scarce drugs to ease local shortages. The study recommends that FDA widen its drug-shortage surveillance system to better track local shortages, as part of a larger effort to set up a supply chain management system that can operate during crises. FDA also should create incentives for more manufacturers, especially domestic drugmakers, to get involved in producing drugs that are currently subject to shortages, the researchers suggest.