A prescription for drug shortages.

摘要

Unlike propofol and cytarabine, which are made by multiple companies, many drugs are manufactured at one site by one company. In addition, drugs may have a single supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredient. Information about the sources of pharmaceutical ingredients is proprietary, but an estimated 80% of raw material for drug manufacturing comes from foreign countries.3 Thus, the supply chain can be quite tenuous and it is only sluggishly responsive to changes in demand.