NEW YORK — The number of drug shortages is at a record high, and the Food and Drug Administration is warning that they are getting even worse.

Fueling the problem are shortages of raw materials. Also, drugmakers are discontinuing older, and off-patent drugs in favor of newer and more profitable ones, and issuing large recalls of drugs due to quality problems, the agency said.

In 2010, 178 drug shortages were reported to the FDA. These include cancer drugs, anesthetics used in surgery, a large number of ‘sterile injectables’ — medicines that are given intravenously — and ‘crash cart’ drugs used in emergency treatments.

Valerie Jensen, FDA’s expert on drug shortages, said regulators are seeing a large number of new drug shortages in 2011 as well.
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Jensen said the agency is especially concerned about the danger to consumers from shortages of injectable drugs, which represented more than half of the shortages reported last year to the FDA.

These are oncology drugs, drugs used during surgery and emergency treatments.

‘Companies have told us that these injectable drugs are older drugs and not as profitable,’ she said. ‘They’ve told us it’s a business decision to discontinue production.’

Over the last six years, the […]