Credit score: Unsplash/CC0 Public Area
At a drug wholesaler warehouse in Belgium, cabinets are emptier than they was once.
Like different EU nations, Belgium has more and more skilled drugs shortages that vex pharmacists, exasperate sufferers and danger overloading public well being companies.
“There are often several dozen medications that are in short supply simultaneously, which makes our lives very difficult,” mentioned Didier Ronsyn, a Brussels pharmacist.
An EU audit final month discovered shortages have been a “chronic headache” throughout the bloc.
Its 27 states reported operating critically in need of 136 medication, together with antibiotics and medicines used to deal with coronary heart assaults, between 2022 and 2024, the European Courtroom of Auditors (ECA) mentioned.
Belgium reported probably the most instances, with greater than a dozen crucial cases—which means no alternate options can be found—notified to the European Medicines Company (EMA) in 2024 solely.
The trigger partially lies in provide chain snags and Europe’s over-reliance on Asia for key drug elements, the ECA mentioned.
Cheaper costs imply that Asian producers now provide the EU with 70% of the lively pharmaceutical elements it wants, in response to a research cited within the ECA report.
The dependency is especially acute for painkillers, like acetaminophen or ibuprofen, and medicines that ran critically low lately, together with some antibiotics and salbutamol, an bronchial asthma drug bought beneath the model title Ventolin.
But, EU inner market inefficiencies are additionally guilty.
‘Colossal workload’
Drug costs differ throughout the bloc as nationwide authorities negotiate individually with producers, defined Olivier Delaere, CEO of Febelco, a wholesale distributor that serves about 40% of Belgian pharmacies.
As a consequence, producers are likely to ship extra to nations that pay extra, and simply sufficient to those that drove a tougher discount—to keep away from medication being re-exported for revenue, he mentioned.
Moreover, the ECA mentioned that almost all medicines are nonetheless licensed at nationwide stage and packages differ considerably amongst nations, which makes inner EU commerce “more costly and complex”.
This causes so-called “local shortages”, when a product will not be accessible in a single EU nation however may be discovered simply throughout the border in one other member state, mentioned Delaere of Febelco.
“It’s a growing problem,” he mentioned, as a large automated dispenser stacked with drugs containers crammed inexperienced baskets—every comparable to a pharmacist’s order—on a conveyor belt within the warehouse behind him.
Some 70% of the about a million consumer calls the agency receives a yr “are focused solely on medicine shortages”, Delaere mentioned. “It is an absolutely colossal workload and energy drain.”
‘Sophisticated’, for now
In 2024, EU pharmacists spent on common 11 hours per week managing shortages, in response to PGEU, a pharmacists’ commerce group.
Ronsyn mentioned he typically spends an hour a day “making phone calls, checking information, sending patients away, or calling them back to tell them their medication has arrived or in certain cases, that it hasn’t”—one thing that didn’t occur prior to now.
“It’s also tough for the patient, who might panic a little when they don’t get their medication on time,” he mentioned.
Brussels has been scrambling to search out options.
In March, the European Fee proposed a “critical medicines act” geared toward boosting manufacturing within the EU by offering incentives and urging member states to maneuver away from worth as the important thing criterion for awarding procurement contracts.
It was adopted in July by a “stockpiling strategy” to coordinate shares and guarantee medicines and different items can be found in case of disaster.
A fee spokeswoman mentioned Brussels was assured that these and different not too long ago launched proposals “will make a substantial difference” and “significantly help tackling the problem.”
The payments are at present being negotiated with the European Parliament and member states, a typically prolonged course of.
“They are trying to find solutions, but it is always very slow,” mentioned Ronsyn, whose pharmacy overlooks the fee workplaces. “We will probably get there someday, but for now it’s complicated.”
© 2025 AFP
Quotation:
Continual drug shortages frustrate EU pharmacists, sufferers (2025, October 12)
retrieved 12 October 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2025-10-chronic-drug-shortages-frustrate-eu.html
This doc is topic to copyright. Other than any truthful dealing for the aim of personal research or analysis, no
half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is supplied for data functions solely.
