A team led by Pitt researchers has found that supply disruptions increased for many drugs at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and returned to prepandemic levels after May 2020.
The findings of the study, published in JAMA Network Open on April 5, suggest that ongoing policy work is needed to protect U.S. drug supplies from future supply shocks, the researchers wrote.
Katie Suda, professor of medicine, was the principal investigator, and Katherine Callaway Kim, a graduate student in the School of Public Health, was first author of a cross-sectional study, in which a total of 571 drugs exposed to 731 supply chain issue reports were matched to 7,296 comparison medications.
A manufacturer having difficulty getting an ingredient to make a drug is one example of a supply chain issue, Suda said, but residual supply may be able to account for manufacturing delays and does not cause a meaningful decrease in supply. One in seven such reports actually resulted in drug shortages, the study found.
“We were able to use the COVID-19 pandemic as an example scenario for other risks that may impact the supply chain,” Suda explained.
“The drug supply chain is international and frequently each step of the manufacturing process can occur in different countries. The raw ingredient may be made in country A and the tablet in country B, and then it’s sent to country C for distribution.”
That makes the drug supply chain vulnerable to disruptions including war, political and social upheaval, government actions, bankruptcies, natural disasters, fires and other potential epidemics.