Shortage of medicine made of kitchen basics hits US
pharmafile | May 23, 2017 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Pfizer, Sodium bicarbonate
Do you have a pot of unused baking soda that sits at the back of the cupboard, forgotten? Well, hospitals are currently suffering from a lack of medicine made from this basic ingredient – sodium bicarbonate.
The ingredient holds far more uses than simply causing your cake to rise, it is an important medicine that all hospitals carry. In the US, it is supplied by manufacturers Pfizer and Amphastar but they are currently unable to meet demand.
Pfizer notified hospitals that, due to problems with its supply chain, it would have low supplies of the medicine until June or later. The knock-on effect caused Amphastar to be overwhelmed with demand and it too experienced a shortage in supply.
The medicine is delivered to hospitals in formulations of various strengths, most commonly of 4.2%, 5.0%, 7.5% or 8.4% hypertonic solutions of sodium bicarbonate. The medicine is used for various life-saving procedures, including in patients whose blood has become to acidic. It is also used in open-heart surgery and in some types of chemotherapy.
The shortage has already led to some hospitals having to reschedule the open-heart surgery for multiple patients or even having to divert patients to over hospitals that possess large supplies of the medicine.
Pfizer released a statement to its customers explaining why it was unable to supply the medicine: “The Pfizer Injectables business is currently experiencing shortages on several injectable drugs used in hospitals and other clinical settings. We understand and regret the challenges these shortages pose to clinicians and patients. We are expediting our recovery activities, and are sharing details and timing so you can plan accordingly. While the causes of individual shortages vary, the majority are due to three main factors – manufacturing, distribution, and third-party supplier delays”.
Pfizer is not obliged to divulge the exact reasons by the low-levels of medicine held by the company. Critics have already pointed out that such low-profit medicines are not held at a priority, citing the previous example of shortages of sodium bicarbonate in 2012 and of saline solution in 2014.
Ben Hargreaves
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