{"id":156432,"date":"2025-09-23T23:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T23:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/156432\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T23:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T23:10:09","slug":"a-persistent-issue-which-medicines-are-in-short-supply-in-the-european-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/156432\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A persistent issue’: Which medicines are in short supply in the European Union?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

Supplies of 136 medicines that are considered “critical” for people’s health were in short supply in the European Union between 2022 and October 2024, according to a new report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA). <\/p>\n

This reached record levels in 2023 and 2024, with 48 and 46 critical shortages per year, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No fewer than 21 out of 27 member states reported critical shortages from the beginning of 2024 until the end of October 2024.<\/p>\n

Belgium, Spain, and France reported the highest critical medicine shortages. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In January 2024, 19 countries in the European Economic Area (EEA) experienced shortages of winter antibiotics, with 11 countries recording critical shortages.<\/p>\n

“Medicine shortages are a persistent issue across the EU, and that’s still a chronic headache for the Union. But they have grown in frequency and severity, reaching record levels in 2023 and 2024,” the ECA’s Klaus-Heiner Lehne told journalists while presenting the report<\/a>. <\/p>\n

What is causing this issue?<\/p>\n

These shortages are due to several factors, including increased demand, manufacturing delays, production capacity issues, and rising energy costs. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“Low level of reward for resilience in national procurement procedures has increased price pressure,” the report stated.<\/p>\n

Production costs in the EU are estimated to be 20% to 40% higher than in Asia.<\/p>\n

This leads to the EU depending on Asia for 70% of its active pharmaceutical ingredients and 79% of its medicine precursors (the biochemical substances from which they are formed), according to the analytics company IQVIA.<\/p>\n

This situation has an impact on patients and represents a significant economic cost to national health systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How do EU countries report their lack of supply?<\/p>\n

However, making comparisons between EU countries is challenging, as there are disparities in the way countries report medicine shortages. \u00a0<\/p>\n

For instance, Italy needs to notify authorities four months prior to any supply interruption.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Austria only needs to provide immediate notification of prescription-only medicines if they are in short supply for more than two weeks. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Stockpiling measures for medicines also differ.<\/p>\n

For example, in Denmark, the national stockpiling requirement is six weeks of expected sales, while Germany requires six months of buffer stocks. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Amoxicillin, a common antibiotic used to treat many infections, and verteporfin, which treats a broad range of eye conditions, were both in the list of critical shortages at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT Supplies of 136 medicines that are considered “critical” for people’s health were in short supply in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[102,2960,6591,3100,42642,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-156432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-medication","11":"tag-medicine","12":"tag-shortage","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}