A strategic reserve of essential generic cancer drugs to end recurring shortages
Cancer patients have had treatments delayed because basic chemotherapy drugs ran out. Keeping a national stockpile, like for flu antivirals, would prevent this.
Shortages of cisplatin, carboplatin, methotrexate, fluorouracil and other essential generics recur every few years in high-income countries and chronically in LMICs, usually after a single manufacturer's quality failure. Several countries hold strategic reserves of antivirals and antibiotics; none holds oncology essentials. The proposal is a rotating national or regional reserve covering six months of demand for the 20 most shortage-prone oncology generics, with stock rotated through normal supply chains to avoid waste, procurement rules that require dual sourcing, and automatic release triggers.
- No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs · Old, cheap drugs with anti-cancer signals never get the trials they need because no one profits from the result.
- Most of the world has almost no cancer care · Seven in ten cancer deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, where radiotherapy, pathology, surgery and drugs are scarce.
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