Medicine bottlenecks: Sandoz withdraws from the manufacturing of bronchial asthma emergency sprays | EUROtoday

Pharmaceutical associations and firms warn of bottlenecks in bronchial asthma emergency sprays with the lively ingredient salbutamol. The purpose for that is the withdrawal of the Swiss pharmaceutical firm Sandoz from the manufacturing of those medicines. “We will no longer produce this medicine in the next one to two years,” mentioned Thomas Weigold, head of Germany from Sandoz, to Welt am Sonntag. Weigold refers back to the rising prices by way of an EU regulation, which specifies sprays with environmentally pleasant gases as an alternative of the earlier variant with fluorinated greenhouse gases.

“The conversion of the production of these sprays is associated with enormous costs. However, we cannot implement rising costs into price adjustments because they are regulated. This is hardly economically viable. We have to let the production of the asthma emergency sprays expire,” mentioned Weigold. In his work in German Rudolstadt, Sandoz produces round six million of the dosing nosols for the therapy of acute bronchial asthma assaults per 12 months.

The Federal Institute for Medicines and Medical Devices (BfArM) already introduced a scarcity of look after “medicinal medicinal medicines in pulmonary dosage form” in December 2023. According to the Bfarm, the explanation for the bottlenecks are “problems in manufacturing and increased worldwide demand”. According to the authority, the issues are “not due to any new regulations”. Information on “specific waiver of approvals” wouldn’t be out there to the BfArM. Therefore, the authority is “no market withdrawal from the admission owner at the present time”.

In addition, there would at the moment be two functions for brand spanking new registration for the BfArM, which is why the authority assumes that an enchancment in care will come up. The availability of those sprays is at the moment being “sufficient”. The Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) introduced that the EU regulation is “a major challenge” for producers. So that the availability of the sprays just isn’t endangered, the BMG is intently exchanged with the pharmaceutical firms and the accountable authorities.

Andreas Macho Is world financial reporter in Berlin with a concentrate on well being and Construction trade.