According to Taiwan's "China Times", the tide of drug shortage on the island is coming, and the next wave of fear of burning cancer drugs. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced a list of 6 chemotherapy drugs out of stock, hoping to alleviate the demand by importing foreign famous drugs. Some experts are worried that this move may disrupt the supply of cancer drugs on the island.
The picture shows the pharmacist taking medicine. Image source: China Times infographic
The US FDA recently announced 14 anti-cancer shortage drugs, of which Carboplatin and Cisplatin are the most concerned. Yang Muhua, director of Taipei Rong General Oncology Department, pointed out that the above two chemotherapy drugs are mainly used for head and neck cancer, ovarian cancer, esophageal cancer, lung cancer, and are drugs that cannot be replaced, and many studies have pointed out that if these two drugs are not used, the efficacy will be discounted. Yang Muhua said that if there is also a shortage of these two chemotherapy drugs in Taiwan in the future, it will be very serious and greatly affect the rights and interests of cancer patients.
Shen Caiying, spokesperson of the Taiwan Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management Association, said that the United States successively announced the shortage of a number of chemotherapy drugs in April and May, showing the seriousness of the drug supply problem, and the future purchase of foreign famous drugs by the United States to make up for the gap, it is difficult to ensure that it will not affect Taiwan's supply, and cancer drugs are different from the three high drugs, if the patient is myrrh available, it may endanger his life.
However, the Food and Drug Administration (CFD) said that upon enquiry, both local manufacturers and importing manufacturers indicated that the current supply was normal, and reminded relevant drug license-holders to continue to track the import production or API supply.
Some pharmacists said that local chemotherapy drugs were scarce long before the epidemic, the reason is nothing more than the low price of payment, now cancer treatment options are diverse, immunotherapy, target drugs prices are high, manufacturers are "very willing to introduce", but such as chemotherapy drugs These famous drugs payment price is no longer enough cost, not many manufacturers are willing to introduce Taiwan, even local industries are not very willing to produce.
Senior attending physician Zhang Yifang said frankly that he has deeply felt the changes in the island's drug atmosphere for more than 30 years, and in the early years, Taiwan was the world's major pharmaceutical companies competing to compete in Taiwan's market, but in recent years, with the gradual downward adjustment of drug prices, the time for original drugs to be introduced locally is getting later and later, and now new drugs will not enter Taiwan until they are on the market for an average of 5 years.
Zhang Yifang lamented that the conditions of health insurance benefits are too distorted to keep up with the world's treatment guidelines, and the biggest problem is that part of the burden cannot be effectively increased, and the authorities have many things that do not consider the matter itself, but focus on political interests and votes, which make Taiwan's medical quality more and more unable to keep up with the world trend.
In this regard, some netizens on the island bluntly said, "The health insurance budget is used to buy outdated and scrapped weapons in the United States" and "the higher the health insurance premium, the more serious the lack of medicine." ”