FEAM, The Federation of European Academies of Medicine (www.feam.eu) is the umbrella organization of 23 national medical academies representing over 5000 of the top physician scientists across Europe. According to its website, FEAM”S mission is to “promote cooperation between national Academies of Medicine, Pharmacy and Veterinary Science, or national Academies via their medical division, in the WHO European region; to provide them with a platform to formulate and express their common position on European matters concerning human and animal medicine, biomedical research, education, and health; and to extend to the European authorities the advisory role that they exercise in their own countries on those matters.”
Shortages of medicines are a growing concern for healthcare systems, drug manufacturers, healthcare professionals, veterinarians, and especially for patients. Shortages have a wide range of impacts, ultimately leading to lower quality care and patient treatment disruption. Depending on the context, the underlying causes of the problem can be identified in two groups: demand- or supply-led shortages. Due to a sudden exponential demand, the COVID-19 crisis has put shortages of critical medicines and protective equipment in the spotlight. However, these particular types of shortages do not necessarily reflect structural and long-term features of recurrent supply disruptions, mainly caused by active pharmaceutical ingredient shortages or low profitable generic production and distribution.
The multi-factorial nature of shortages amplifies the difficulty to assess and define them, contributing, until recently, to little policy attention at national and European levels. The definition of a drug shortage may vary depending on the political level and scale to be considered (i.e. local, national, European, international), the frequency baseline to report shortages (i.e. in terms of hours, days or weeks) and the different perspectives of the stakeholders being affected by this problem (e.g. industry, patients). European and national actions are greatly needed to tackle this pressing issue.
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