Generics manufacturing now dependent on China and India

“The EU is now fully dependent on Asia for generics. Germany used to be the pharmacy of the world. Now it’s China and India.”

That is the conclusion of a new report evaluating the work of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in mitigating critical medicines shortages.

The report, Critical shortages of medicines, published by European financial watchdog the European Court of Auditors finds that EMA powers to reduce medicines shortages across Europe are hampered by a lack of information on medicines shortages from individual member states.

One consequence is that doctors receive insufficient advice on alternative medicines in the event of shortages.

Other factors compounding difficulties in medicines supply chain resilience include differential generics pricing policies across Europe and individual member states’ attitudes to stockpiling. Between them, Germany, Denmark, France and Austria have over one year and a half’s worth of medicines stockpiled as buffer stocks, the report notes.

The report concludes that there is yet to be an effective framework for critical shortages of medicines. “Efforts to tackle the underlying causes of these shortages remain at an early stage,” said Klaus Heiner Lehne, the ECA Member leading the audit.

Among the remedies suggested is reform of public procurement to ensure minimum levels of critical medicines within the EU, exchanging antibiotics with countries in the Southern Hemisphere and greater information exchange with international regulators.

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