The high demand for children’s medication shines a light on the state of US drug supplies.


What’s going on in Adderall? Restoring supplies at the end of the crisis, and what they can do for the government and the public

Recovery times for manufacturers’ supplies can be different. The most popular Adderall in the US is due to rebound in October at a 10 mg dose. But many of its generic brand offerings aren’t expected to recover until March 2023.

There are some things that can be done to make sure that there are enough systems in place. The FDA requires manufacturers to notify it if there is anything that would disrupt the manufacturing or supply of a drug, and in many cases, that allows the agency to head off problems.

“So some people are just going without,” he said. They are not doing as well at their jobs. They are not able to keep up with all of their professional and personal relationships. Some people I’ve talked to are trying to compensate with other sort of stimulants, drinking a lot of coffee, energy drinks – people I’ve talked to who have thought about going to the black market.”

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There is a shortage of pain and infectious disease medicines for children because of a number of viruses hitting the United States at the same time. Many doctors say they haven’t seen so many kids sick at the same time.

Shortages “hit a lot of different patient populations with different drugs and whatnot, but many of those don’t get a lot of headline news because they’re very niche,” said David Margraf, a pharmaceutical research scientist with the Resilient Drug Supply Project at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

“They’re all a different tale,” Margraf said. “There’s commonalities between them, but each one is a little bit different and it’s very tedious trying to figure out what’s going on sometimes.”

The raw ingredients that go into making the drugs are from only two countries, China and India, according to the chief executive officer of a company that maps and monitors the supply chain of pharmaceuticals. A work stop in India due to China’s zero Covid policy may have a trickle-down effect on the supplies of many products.

Even with normal levels of production, high demand during a tough cold and flu season – like the one the US is experiencing – can make it hard for families to find what they’re looking for.

Whitney Hemsath, a writer and mother of four living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, said she has been noticing how little children’s medication has been on store shelves for a few weeks, but she wasn’t too worried since the family still had some at home.

The ear infection was confirmed by their doctor the next day. He called the prescription into a chain pharmacy, but gave her a written copy, too, in case it was difficult to find. Sure enough, the first pharmacy was out, and so was the next. She called her doctor to change her son’s prescription because the pharmacy wouldn’t take their Medicaid insurance and the alternative medication was too expensive.

She started searching for a store that would be open at 5:30 a.m., and found one with three bottles of the children’s medication left. There was no ibuprofen, which lasts longer, and no generics or store brands. While she was grateful to find something, she says the family is on a tight budget while her husband finishes his Ph.D., so paying for the brand name medicine was frustrating.

Her son is doing better now, and she said she feels bad complaining because she was lucky to find what she needed – but it took time and effort she wasn’t used to.

“The security of knowing I can go to the store or doctor and get my kids the medicine they need is gone,” she said. It has been replaced by the worry that the shelves might not be empty.

Bare shelves in some stores may seem reminiscent of this year’s baby formula shortage, but the situations aren’t quite the same. With formula, a major manufacturer recalled products and shut down one of its factories and conducted a nationwide recall after the government found quality problems at the production facility, taking it offline for months. shelves were empty because of supply chain problems caused by the shutdown.

Major US manufacturer of children’s medications, including Perrigo in Michigan, are operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to the Consumer healthcare Products Association.

An FDA official who spoke with CNN on the condition of anonymity said that the agency was monitoring the products carefully at this time.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/health/drug-shortages-explainer/index.html

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“There are not any manufacturing problems, so there’s not anything that’s slowing production down or causing these shortages as far as manufacturing. The official said that manufacturers are working closely with them to increase supply in order to get demand where the priority is.

The official wouldn’t say if the companies were requesting help. “I can say they are picking up on those offers, and they’re working very closely with us,” the official said.

Companies produce generic drugs to order. They don’t keep stock in a warehouse. Some manufacturers say this year’s orders didn’t anticipate the high demand. Even when companies realize there’s a shortfall, it could take weeks or months for them to make more product.

Inexpensive generics are the drugs that seem to disappear. These “sterile injectables” have stringent manufacturing requirements that make them costly to produce, and they have slimmer profit margins, so there’s less economic incentive for companies to make them.

Other generics – like many antibiotics – are vulnerable to shortages, too. Experts believe that happened to some of the formulas of amoxicillin.

The senior director of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Center at the U.S. pharmacopeia said it came down to economics.

For the past three years, the USP has been tracking pharmaceutical supply chains through its Medicine Supply Map in order to help identify and head off potential shortages.

“And then you throw in an unexpected shock, like a demand increase because of the surge in RSV and the flu and Covid, and the supply chain is not able to absorb that shock,” she added.

“But that’s something we’re really encouraging companies to do, let us know if there’s a spike in demand so that we can work with them early on, just as they can with supply disruptions,” the official told CNN.

It points to Biden’s Executive Order on America’s Supply Chains, signed in February 2021, which directed the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to identify and report risks in the supply chain for pharmaceuticals and their active ingredients and to make recommendations to address those risks.

“HHS, for the first time in its history, has established a new dedicated public health industrial base expansion and supply chain management office, with the goal of building resilience,” White House spokesperson Kevin Munoz wrote in an email to CNN.