Concerns over the shortage of anti-cancer drugs

Elise Denjean 7:33 am, September 20, 2021

DECRYPTION

It is an increasingly frequent and worrying phenomenon.

Due to the relocation of production lines to Asia, especially China and India, where the manufacturing cost is lower, some drugs are running out.

Last year, the Medicines Safety Agency recorded nearly 2,500 reports of stockouts, 1,000 more than the previous year.

In 2010, there had been only 130 cases.

Among the products most concerned: cardiovascular drugs, anti-infectives ... and anti-cancer drugs.

"No cancer that hasn't been touched"

It is on these that the League against cancer wants to draw attention.

"There is not, I think, cancer which at a given moment was not affected by a problem of shortages", suggests Professor Jean-Paul Vernant, administrator at the League.

And he is categorical: these shortages can have very important consequences.

"In bladder cancer, BCG is an extremely effective drug when injected into the bladder. However, there is a lack of BCG. Sanofi has decided to stop production. And the only possible alternative at this time is to perform a cystectomy, therefore to remove the patient's bladder with all the consequences "that this implies. 

More transparency and stocks

The League against cancer therefore calls for more transparency and information with regard to patients.

But also wants pharmaceutical companies to be forced to stock 4 to 6 months.

Finally, and above all, the organization demands that the manufacture of active ingredients be repatriated to Europe. 

It was precisely a promise from Emmanuel Macron during the Covid-19 epidemic, but the file has not advanced much.

It must be said that such a project will take several years.

We have to build factories, when everything is very regulated.

In the meantime, a small tricolor victory, however: the return from 2023 of paracetamol production in Roussillon, in the Pyrénées-Orientales.