[Reporter's View] Addressing drug shortage, healthcare

security and pharma sovereignty

Ahead of Korea's early presidential election, scheduled for June 3, leading candidates have prioritized pledges to strengthen government support for essential medicines·address drug shortages.

 

Lee Jae-myung, the candidate for the Democratic Party of Korea, included the resolution of a supply shortage of essential medicines in his top 10 pledges, suggesting the possibility of a partial introduction of generic name prescribing for drugs such as flu treatments and cold medicines.

 

Kim Moon-soo, the candidate for the People Power Party, also promised to create a system for detecting drug supply shortages, establish a public electronic prescription system, and set up a drug supply management committee.

 

Lee Jun-seok, the candidate for the Reform Party, also acknowledged that frequent drug shortages are a pressing concern for pharmacists, indicating his intention to establish an independent channel with the Korean Pharmaceutical Association (KPA) to discuss related solutions.

 

Likewise, the inconvenience faced by pharmacies and patients due to shortages of frequently sought-after essential medicines has remained unresolved for several years, becoming a nationwide headache to the extent that presidential candidates have uniformly listed it as their top pharmacy-related pledge.

 

While pharmacists review their drug shortage checklists every morning and respond to the chaos by exchanging drugs with nearby pharmacies through local communities and KakaoTalk, they are frustrated that the process remains haphazard.

 

These are the reasons the KPA proposed to the presidential candidates the establishment of a government-level drug shortage management system.

 

The aim is to advance beyond merely sharing information about some drug shortages through the Drug Utilization Review (DUR) service and for the government to establish a system that assumes social responsibility.

 

The newly appointed president, following the election, and the new government need to design and implement policies with a mission to find fundamental solutions to drug shortage issues, thereby strengthening national health security and pharmaceutical sovereignty.

 

The drug shortage problem arises due to the instability of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) supply due to accelerating drug nationalism.

 

To domestically produce APIs that have low profitability, the government must provide sufficient incentives.

 

In other words, the government must exert its public role to the fullest, encouraging domestic approval and manufacturing of essential drugs by pharmaceutical companies to improve self-sufficiency rates and also advance the distribution lines of produced medicines.

 

Suppose a system is also created that can quickly promote the supply of the relevant active ingredient/product or alternative drugs when sudden shortages occur in local pharmacies.

 

In that case, the frequent occurrence of drug shortages being raised at the annual national audit will decrease.

 

We anticipate the election of a president who will operate the existing public-private consultative body for drug shortages, thereby implementing policies and budgetary solutions into actual systems to ensure organic cooperation among the pharmaceutical industry, the pharmacy community, and drug distribution.