Medicines shortages have become a complex global issue, putting lives at risk and creating difficulties for health care professionals. There is evidence that these shortages are worsening with time and have been reported in countries of all income levels. They occur across all healthcare settings and involve essential life-saving medicines, very commonly used medicines and both high- and low-price medicines. The causes of these shortages are multidimensional in the context of a complex global supply chain. As a result, there is a growing concern among health care professionals about the future of medicines availability worldwide.

Recommendations to tackle medicines shortages and stock-outs

FIP Statement of Policy on Medicines Shortages issued a series of recommendations on tacking medicines shortages around the globe. Six key areas of recommendations that were adopted by FIP Council comprised of over 150 FIP member organisations in countries around the world:

1. Each country establishes a publicly accessible means of providing information on medicine shortages.
2. A global process to determine the list of critical or vulnerable products should be developed.
3. All procurers of medicines are urged to move towards active procurement processes that assure the continuity of supply of quality medicines.
4. All countries are encouraged to remove unnecessary variability of regulatory practices within and between countries.
5. Medicines regulatory agencies should gather and share information about demand for, and supply of medicines (and particularly essential medicines) within their jurisdictions. Countries without a medicines regulatory agency should investigate the potential to establish a national body charged with this task.
6. All countries are encouraged to develop evidence-based risk mitigation strategies which might include contingency plans, pandemic planning and capacity redundancy appropriate to their national needs and strategic buffer stockpiles.

The policy also presents recommendations for governments as well as all supply chain stakeholders (pharmaceutical industry, parallel traders, full-service healthcare distributors and other pharmaceutical wholesalers, hospital and community pharmacies). We all need to work together to develop and improve medicines shortages reporting systems in order to share, in a timely manner, information that provides transparent insights on potential unavailability problems.

In 2023, FIP started to work on a new policy statement about access to medicines, that is covering shortages as well. The new statement will be published in 2024.

Review of reporting systems   In May 2017 FIP released an overview of eight models used in Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Slovakia, South Africa and the USA for reporting medicines shortages. This document aims to support the information sharing on what different reporting systems exist and support the implementation of the WHA Resolution 69.25. In a number of countries, shortage reporting systems are being implemented by national associations of pharmacists.

History of FIP’s Commitment through Advocacy at Global Level  FIP has a long history of working to address global medicines shortages. Already since 2011, this problem was highlighted at its 71st World Congress of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. A year later, two FIP office-bearers wrote in the World Health Organization Bulletin about how medicines shortages are a global challenge and need good long-term mitigation strategies . In 2013, FIP organised the International Summit on Medicines Shortage in Toronto, Canada, providing a forum to discuss the causes, impact, and solutions to medicines shortages through a multi-stakeholder approach. FIP has been pleased to see that the recommendations from the FIP summit were aligned with the 2016 World Health Assembly resolution “Addressing the global shortage of medicines and vaccines” (69.25). In December 2015, FIP financially and technically supported the WHO Technical Consultation on Preventing and Managing Global Stock Outs of Medicines event, where an overview on the current medicines shortages situation was presented. FIP has since then organised several events, webinars and congress sessions covering this topic. For example in 2022, the event Understanding the global pharmacy supply chain for hospital pharmacies provided an overview of understanding of the current global supply chain, current threats to the supply chain such as drug shortages, natural disasters, substandard and falsified medicines, and how to create a resilient supply chain as we move forward in society. It also emphasised the value of a pharmacist in this area and the difference they can make. In parallel, FIP has taken an active role in raising awareness of medicine shortages. We have given statements on addressing the global shortage of medicines and vaccines at the WHO Executive Board meetings in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018, and at the World Health Assembly in 2018. In these statements, FIP has reflected its commitment to finding solutions to tackle medicines shortages, to raise awareness of their impact, to improve access and to help implement the WHO resolution 69.25 on medicines shortages.