{"id":27598,"date":"2026-08-04T18:24:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T13:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=27598"},"modified":"2026-08-04T18:24:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T13:24:27","slug":"why-theres-a-shortage-of-chemotherapy-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=27598","title":{"rendered":"Why There&#8217;s a Shortage of Chemotherapy Drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"paragraph-content\">\n<div>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">A lot of ingredients for all kinds of drugs come from China and India, says Christian, who has spearheaded the development of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usp.org\/supply-chain\/medicine-supply-map\" target=\"undefined\">a supply-chain monitoring tool for the U.S. Pharmacopeia<\/a>. He has found that 41% of drugs\u2019 key starting materials are made solely in China, meaning that the health of people around the world relies on Chinese companies continuing to make and provide those ingredients.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><h2 id=\"what-s-the-way-forward\" class=\"scroll-mt-24 font-editorial text-black-coffee text-mobile-h2 lg:scroll-mt-28 lg:text-h2 mb-4\">What\u2019s the way forward?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">At the moment, hospitals \u201care heavily incentivized to find any drug that is the cheapest upfront cost,\u201d says Christian. \u201cBut there&#8217;s no real mechanism for hospitals to pay more to ensure greater resilience.\u201d<strong> <\/strong>As the shortages prove, these drugs aren\u2019t products where market dynamics lead to a consistent, reliable manufacturing system. \u201cThey should be cheap and high-quality,\u201d says Scholtes. \u201cThey are essential.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">Generic drugs in general should be like water coming from the tap, he says. It\u2019s a model that inspired a group of U.S. health systems to start a non-profit, U.S.-based drug manufacturer in 2018, which Scholtes, <a href=\"https:\/\/catalyst.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/CAT.23.0167\" target=\"undefined\">who co-authored a paper about it<\/a>, calls a \u201chealth care utility.\u201d The company, called <a href=\"https:\/\/civicarx.org\/\" target=\"undefined\">Civica<\/a>, is based in Petersburg, Va. and capable of manufacturing a small handful of generic drugs in a U.S. facility and ensuring consistent supply at a sustainable cost. But currently, Civica only produces certain medications\u2014not including chemotherapy drugs. Few companies have similar models and missions, but one, called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.phlow-usa.com\/\" target=\"undefined\">Phlow Pharmaceuticals<\/a>, was founded in 2020 to produce active ingredients for drugs in the U.S. in order to mitigate reliance on overseas sources.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of ingredients for all kinds of drugs come from China and India, says Christian, who has spearheaded the development of a supply-chain monitoring tool for the U.S. Pharmacopeia. He has found that 41% of drugs\u2019 key starting materials are made solely in China, meaning that the health of people around the world relies&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static.time.com\/v3\/assets\/bltea6093859af6183b\/blt75bbcecca86bbabe\/6a70f07c72ce23b7fe834818\/GettyImages-1806224504.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}