Australia is heavily reliant on overseas supply chains for access to pharmaceutical drugs. And there are already signs that shortages may be on the way.
Last week India, the world’s main supplier of generic drugs, restricted the export of 26 pharmaceutical ingredients and the medicines made from them — including paracetamol.
This is due to supply chain interruptions from the coronavirus. India is one of the biggest manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, and sources a lot of raw ingredients from China.
Professor Raina MacIntyre, head of the biosecurity research program at UNSW Medicine, said India’s decision could have far-reaching impacts for Australia.
“We get more drugs from India than China so that could be a problem. And the effects of these supply problems can be delayed. We’ve got certain supplies here, but once those are exhausted, that may be when we start seeing an impact.”
Pharmaceutical company Pfizer said it had not yet seen any disruption in its supply chain or impact to its business.
“At this time, the ban does not impact the export of products from our sites in India,” a spokesperson said.
‘Be prepared’
The Therapeutic Goods Administration is meeting with stakeholders this week to discuss how the coronavirus may impact drug supplies. There are reports the federal government is preparing to sock pile vital medicines.
MacIntyre said Australia was vulnerable to shortages because most pharmaceutical drugs were not stockpiled here, but imported on an “as needed” basis.
“Even the ones made in India source the raw ingredients from China. So it’s a bit of an unknown as to how we will be affected. We should be prepared.”
But the message from Health Minister Greg Hunt — who in January posed for photos in front of pallets of medical supplies — is that Australia’s medical supplies are “well stocked”, particularly when it comes to things like face masks and protective equipment.
“We do have strong supply chains. As part of our job, that is one of the items that was a specific Commonwealth action item,” he said last month.
The crisis could also force the government to set up new drug manufacturing sites in Australia.
Victorian Minister for Health Jenny Mikakos has suggested such a move could be on the table.
“Of course, a lot of our supply chain, our suppliers, are actually from overseas,” she said.
“As demand grows internationally, and perhaps some supplies in China might be impacted by their own local manufacturing having been shut down, we need to be innovative. We need to nimble. So Greg and I have been having discussions around local manufacturers here in Victoria that might be able to scale up their production.”
Check the medicine cabinet
Australia does keep a small reserve of drugs, vaccines, antidotes and protective equipment at the National Medical Stockpile, which, according to its website — last updated in 2014 — is intended to “supplement” holdings of drugs and protective equipment held by state and territory health authorities.
It also holds a “limited supply of highly specialised drugs” that, in an emergency, may not be available elsewhere within the Australian pharmaceutical supply system.
The CEO of the Consumers Health Forum, Leanne Wells, said she was concerned about access to medication, particularly in the case of a quarantine situation.
“We would like to see community pharmacy step up and do home deliveries to people who are self-isolating and don’t have family or friends who can pick up their regular scripts,” she said.
“But the message from Health Minister Greg Hunt — who in January posed for photos in front of pallets of medical supplies — is that Australia’s medical supplies are “well stocked”, particularly when it comes to things like face masks and protective equipment. ”
If we’re sending the army to get 54 million surgical masks from overseas (as announced in Melbourne by Hunt, yesterday), we are clearly not ‘well-stocked’.
Why the Army?
Wouldn’t the Air Force be quicker and the Navy could carry more. Or is it planned to take the drugs by force?
But then how is the Army going to get where ever it’s going? A QANTAS charter flight perhaps?
As a bonus, for all those doubters out there, How wonderful is Globalisation. Is it not astounding how somebody getting flu in one country can now bring the world to a stop.
And as for the beancounter turkey who came up with “just in time” stock management, surely a Noble Prize is in order.
In addition the highest Order of Australia should go to our Pollies who allowed all our own manufacturing to go offshore. Yeah it’s cheaper especially when we can’t get the stuff.
Don’t forget to reelect our current LNP Government at the next election, their method of “When in doubt do ‘nowt but spout” is a nation saver.
I think you are not considering the immense complexity in manufacturing masks out of…paper.
According to this report above. “the Govt. is preparing to sock pile supplies of medicine.”
That would be appropriate for this mob, Can’t get masks,no sweat we’ll get some socks instead. The idiots who voted for us wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Anyway they’ve stockpiled enough toilet rolls, they can suck air through them.
Which country is going to release 54 million masks for export to Australia at a time like this?
Crikey, this is robotic reporting on your part. A journalist would be asking that question.
This whole article is reporting without journalism:
• could have far-reaching impacts
• could be a problem
• can be delayed
• we have certain supplies here
• may start seeing an impact
• it’s a bit of an unknown
etc.
Why do you let them get away with this? You should be asking the important questions and holding the feet of people talking like this to the fire.
Why did we let our drug manufacturing move off shore?
I don’t know, but, if you look back to the stellar career of one Anthony Abbott aka Toned Abs when he was the Health Minister in the Howard years, I sincerely suggest a little dig there should find the reason.
Could someone explain to me, how, an automated process of drug manufacture, packaging and shipping would be cheaper and safer to do in a country, that has many questions regarding both the misuse of antibiotics and quality control.
The country used as a source of the components for the drugs, has 98% of its ground water contaminated with e coli and many chemicals.
What on earth has been going on, in the management of our emergency response
co-ordination or should the question be, what else has our government been skimping on in order to fulfill the “Back in the Black” BS.
If anyone has one of those coffee mugs please let me know, I’d love to buy one.
Two pieces of anecdotal information, which may be relevant.
Firstly, I am on a very low dose of Lyrica for peripheral neuropathy, which works incredibly well, for me.
However, If I accept the generic substitute which is covered by the PBS instead of the branded one which costs a lot more, than the generic drug wears off approximately one to one and a half hours earlier than the branded one, curious isn’t it. And so, I wonder how much extra is prescribed by doctors who do not have patients who quietly do comparisons.
Secondly, Australia actually has a home grown, publicly listed company called TPE, short for Total Poppy Enterprises, which refines opioids from poppy crops grown in Australia and during this drought has been importing poppy straw and refining it down to what is termed a raw narcotic product. This is then shipped to Norway where it is differentiated into products for distribution throughout the E.U.
Please do not try and explain how a first world nation has allowed it to get to the stage that it can not make a headache pill, because my head may explode.
Ratty,
You touched on emergency response.
During the bushfres at Mallacoota. All sorts of equipment was flown in and brass covered people were running around or radioing instructions. Big problem!
Nobody on the ground could actually DO anything practical.
Saved by a bloke who lived there who was on leave from his job as Chief Engineer on an Australian ship. Think of a ship as a floating town. The Chief is responsible for the running of the Sewage systems, water supply, electricity generation in short anything that moves. He had the skills to do that plus the practical skill to bodgie up different sorts of connections or couplings and whatever was necessary.
So much for Canberra’s response to an emergency.
Ha ha ha, we’re rooted, completely, by these glorious economically rational just in time stockpiling principles and the economically rational principles of comparative advantage.
Ha ha ha, numpties, all of them.
Government creating a “sock pile”? More dirty Laundry?
Cuba could show us how to run industry policy.
Cuba demonstrates an independence that exposes the cost of our ideological self-deception, hiding as our Misgovernment and ruling clique does behind the media-sponsored façade of the Anzac Mythology, employed as staunch defenders not of Lone Pine but of profit-seeking.
Prohibiting even trade in medicines, the US embargo led Castro to prioritise investments in medical sciences. Cuba now owns around 900 patents and markets pharmaceutical products and vaccines in 40 countries, generating yearly revenues of US$300m, with the potential for massive expansion. The sector produces more than 70% of the medicines consumed by its 11m people. The entire industry is state owned, research programmes respond to the needs of the population, and all surpluses are reinvested into the sector.
In the mid-1980s Cuba developed the world’s first Meningitis B vaccine, without profiteering like Turing or Gilead. Today, it leads in oncology drugs. In 2012 Cuba patented the first therapeutic cancer vaccine. The US embargo as is intended forces Cuba to source medicines, medical devices and radiology products outside the United States.
Impossible without state planning and investment; because of Cheating’s National Competition Policy we could never do it here.
Easy to see why morrison and his Big Pharma patrons hate socialism. There was no business case to make an Ebola vaccine for the people who needed it most, because they were least able to afford it.