The Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (Aemps) has activated protocols and mechanisms in the EU to request units of cisplatin, a chemotherapy against different types of cancer, given the supply problems that have been ongoing since the beginning of the year and that have caused Spain a "limited existence."
It indicates in a statement that there are supply problems with different presentations of cisplatin - concentrate for infusion - from Pfizer, Accord and Hikma and highlights that it maintains contact with medical and scientific societies to "prioritize" the available units, whose existence is "limited." , until distribution resumes.
It is a drug that is used to treat different types of cancer, including testicular, ovarian, bladder, non-small cell lung, and head and neck.
Both the Aemps and the laboratories are looking for units of foreign medicine to make them available to hospitals "as soon as possible" through the Medicines in Special Situations Service (MSE).
"When this occurs, the agency will communicate it to the scientific societies and hospital pharmacy services with all the updated information so that they can request additional units, based on the prioritization criteria," adds the Aemps.
Pfizer notified the Aemps last February of supply problems with the drug Cisplatino Pharmacia 1 mg/ml concentrate for solution for infusion due to quality problems at its global manufacturing plant.
The agency highlights that this problem "has now been resolved but, added to a transfer of the manufacturing plant to Melbourne (Australia), it has meant a delay in the release of batches for distribution."
Accord Healthcare also reported during March that it would suffer cisplatin supply problems due to restrictions on the capacity of its manufacturing plant, a situation in both laboratories that has resulted in Hikma Farmacéutica not being able to meet all requests.
