Your doctor has prescribed a medicine for you, yes, but when you show your prescription to the pharmacy, you are told that it has been out of stock for some time now …
Ten times more stock-outs than 7 years ago
For 7 years, France has faced ten times more supply disruptions of drugs of major therapeutic interest. The National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) lists 170 drugs out of 14,000 out of stock each month and 5% each day. In 2013, the average duration of these shortages was 94 days, all drugs combined.
This growing phenomenon can have serious repercussions for patients. Because out-of-stock may relate to essential products and for some specialties, an interruption of treatment can be life-threatening or represent a significant loss of opportunity for the patients.
The doctors’ alternative: modify the prescription while keeping the basic molecules, however, this solution is not applicable to all the missing drugs … Fortunately, no death is for the moment to be deplored due to the shortages.
Why are there so many drugs missing?
The reasons of these stockouts? Problems of production, supply of raw materials, industrial capacities in a concentrated and globalized sector. 60 to 80% of active ingredients in medicines are manufactured outside the European Union compared to 20% 30 years ago.
And some raw materials now have a single production site, according to the Order of Pharmacists. It is proving particularly difficult to correct the situation since the reasons for this lack are linked to various uncontrollable factors from France.
Software to anticipate out-of-stock pharmacy
Faced with the shortage, French pharmacies are gradually acquiring a computer system set up by the Order of Pharmacists to better report shortages to laboratories and authorities. This new system will allow laboratories to know in real time the shortages of stock.
In addition, pharmacists will be able to know more precisely the lead time for replenishment. Three thousand pharmacies out of the 22,000 installed in mainland France and overseas have already adopted this software. The device should be present in 15,000 others by the end of 2016.
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