Antibiotic supply chains on ‘brink of collapse’, reports PharmaTimes
George Underwood for PharmaTimes writes that urgent action is needed to rebuild the antibiotics market, in his article on the Foundation’s new white paper on antibiotic shortages.
He writes “The white paper pinpoints underlying factors causing antibiotic shortages. The active ingredients for an antibiotic are generally produced at only a few factories, which means a single manufacturing failure can have huge knock-on effects. For example, an explosion at a Chinese factory in 2016 triggered an ongoing global shortage of the key broad-spectrum antibiotic piperacillin-tazobactam.”
The white paper is titled “Shortages, stockouts and scarcity: the issues facing the security of antibiotic supply and the role for pharmaceutical companies”.