Factors Precluding Cancer Patients from Receiving Chemotherapy
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| Stephanie Scanlan, who earlier this year had to continue treatment without two of the three drugs typically used for her rare form of bone cancer, adjusts a scarf, in Tallahassee, Fla., Sept. 30, 2023. (Mark Wallheiser/The New York Times) |
The most terrifying thing happened to Stephanie Scanlan when she found out last spring about the scarcity of key chemotherapy medications. Too few of the three medications that were normally used to treat her unusual bone cancer could be found. Without them, she would have to go onward.
The disease had been spreading from her wrist to her ribs to her spine for months when Scanlan, 56, the manager of a busy state office in Tallahassee, Florida, started looking for the medications. It became evident by summer that she would require an amputation of her left wrist and hand.
As she prepared for the surgery, she exclaimed, "I'm scared to death." This is the United States of America. Why must we make decisions on who to save?"
The unavailability of essential chemotherapy drugs this year has validated patients' and the healthcare system's worst worries, since some individuals with severe cancers have not been able to receive the necessary treatment.
These and hundreds of other generic pharmaceuticals, such as fentanyl to numb pain during surgery and amoxicillin to cure infections, are still in short supply. However, since 90% of prescriptions in the US are for generic drugs, the worsening situation has not led to the development of better ways to administer these medications.
The Food and Drug Administration's commissioner, Dr. Robert Califf, has suggested measures the organization should do to make things better. However, he claimed that "economic factors that we don't control" are the source of the issue.
"They're outside the FDA's purview," he declared.
The Finance Committee's chairman, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), concurred. During a hearing this month, he stated, "A significant amount of these market failures are driven by the consolidation of generic drug purchasing among a small group of very powerful health care middlemen."
In interviews, over a dozen executives, both past and present, connected to the generic medication business outlined numerous hazards that deter a business from raising production in an effort to alleviate the shortages.
They said that costs had been driven so low that producing life-saving medications may cause insolvency. Under this structure, three middlemen organizations that guard the door to a large number of customers compete with more than 200 generic drugmakers for contracts.
Generic medication manufacturers may offer extremely low pricing to beat competitors for highly sought-after offers. In other cases, the middlemen, known as group-purchasing organizations, want reduced pricing a few days after agreeing to a deal with a pharmaceutical company.
There is significant downward pressure on prices, which is undoubtedly advantageous for patients' and taxpayers' wallets. Intermediary corporations claim that hospitals profit from the group purchasers' competition to supply the lowest-priced products. Drug manufacturers pay them fees based on the quantity of medicine that hospitals purchase.
from Yahoo news https://shorturl.at/exCPT
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