Drug Shortages Persist Due to Cost, Complexity, and Fragile Supply

Despite decades of awareness and mitigation efforts, drug shortages continue to disrupt pharmacy operations and threaten patient safety across every care setting. From cost and complexity to a fragile supply chain with quality concerns, many challenges persist within the pharmaceutical industry that allow for drug shortage issues.

“I think we could look at the main drivers of drug shortages and understand that these are difficult issues to solve, and they go outside of what might be within the control of any type of pharmacy leader in any care setting,” Lani Bertrand, senior director of clinical marketing & thought leadership at Omnicell, told Drug Topics. “The main drivers are low price or low cost of the drugs that are on shortage, manufacturer complexity, geographic concentration, and lastly, quality concerns.”

In part 1 of our interview with Bertrand, she laid the ground work for what’s been happening regarding nationwide drug shortages throughout US health care and the common culprits for why these challenges have been so difficult to address.

As Bertrand goes on to tell us, it’s a complicated mix of razor-thin margins on generic medications, manufacturing complexity, geographic vulnerabilities, and quality concerns—creating a system where improvement is possible but never guaranteed. While recent data suggests new shortage rates are trending downward, however, seasoned pharmacy leaders know better than to celebrate too soon.

For pharmacists navigating this landscape, understanding the root causes—and knowing where to find reliable, up-to-date shortage data—has never been more critical.

READ MORE: Navigating Drug Shortages and Price Fluctuations

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