Medicine shortages set to worsen as Brexit stockpiles run out

Customers could see an increased risk of medicines shortages.

The shortage of medicines is set to only get worse in Ireland because stockpiles created to lessen the impact of Brexit are running out, the chair of Medicines for Ireland has warned.

This comes as shortages affect 207 products, up from 187 before Christmas including cough syrup and multi-purpose antibiotics.

The UK left the European Union on January 31, 2020 with new rules in place since January, 2021.

However Brexit-related consequences for the Irish medicines market are only now emerging in earnest, chairperson Padraic O’ Brien said.

“Most of the manufacturing suppliers or the generic suppliers in Ireland would have increased their stock-in-hand, they would have forward bought and bought stock into Ireland to have it by the time they needed to have all the different regulatory processes in place,” he said.

Mr O’ Brien said this took place during 2020.

“We have benefitted from having a huge quantum of stock of various medicines and that has decreased, as we exit out of that initial Brexit phase,” he warned.

“We are now just starting to see the consequences where weaknesses exist in supply.” 

Supply chain

Ireland is now the only English-speaking EU-member.

“(Pre-Brexit) we could share-pack effectively, there is a mechanism for dual-licencing. The Irish licence and the English licence could co-exist on the one pack,” he said.

“That pack of medicines could be sold in Ireland or the UK simultaneously. Ireland could share the regulatory costs, the burden of those costs with not only be on another party, but a large-scale market.” 

The Irish market might have represented 10 to 15% of a particular order but became more attractive to global companies by being part of a larger market.

Ireland must now stand over minimum orders for individual supply chains at a time when other economic pressures are also rising, he explained.

“That has put pressure on the supply chain,” he said. “Any of these pressures that you put on a low-margin supply chain, you will see consequences. And we are starting to see those consequences now.”

Medicines for Ireland is a pharmaceutical industry body whose members, including Clonmel Healthcare, are suppliers of the majority of medicine to the HSE and patients directly.

Medicine prices

Medicine prices is another concern, he said.

“In actual fact the general trend is that prices (of medicines) are going downwards, the costs (of manufacturing) are going up and the prices are going down,” he said. “There is no mechanism in Ireland, which there is in other countries, that if there is a shortage owing to economic factors, that we can go to the State and say we need to get a price increase quickly.” 

The Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) monitors medicine shortages here. Shortage alerts now include five Benylin cough syrup products out of stock for at least one month, with one not expected back until April.

Shortages also continue of medicines for Strep A illnesses, with five penicillin products out of stock. Some seven antibiotic products containing amoxicillin are now out of stock.

The latest alert says two products used by adults with Type 2 Diabetes are in short supply, according to Novo Nordisk Limited, Ireland.