Danish hospitals are facing significant shortages of essential medicines, including antibiotics, creating uncertainty and potential safety risks for patients. The Capital Region’s Pharmacy, the country’s largest hospital pharmacy and only public medicine factory, is struggling to meet the demand for critical medications.

The pharmacy reported 216 “waiting orders” last year, representing approximately five percent of the medicines it is expected to supply. These shortages have affected medications for asthma, heart disease, anesthetics, and schizophrenia, among others. Antibiotics are a recurring problem due to the lack of production in other Nordic hospital pharmacies.

Rikke Løvig Simonsen, director of the Capital Region’s Pharmacy, emphasized the risks associated with obtaining alternative medications from abroad, as they may not be identical to the original prescriptions. This necessitates extra effort to ensure patient safety during the switch.

To combat these shortages, the pharmacy sometimes produces medicines itself at its factory in Herlev. This includes morphine tablets for severe pain and adapted packages of aspirin for injection, a crucial medicine for treating blood clots. Production of Noradrenaline, used to maintain blood pressure in critically ill patients, was also increased during the corona epidemic.

The Danish Regions are advocating for a significant expansion of the public medicine factory, proposing a billion-kroner investment in new production facilities. This would allow the factory to produce up to 180 of the approximately 200 critical medicines deemed relevant for domestic production in crisis situations, up from the current 34.

While patient organizations support the proposal, the pharmaceutical industry is skeptical. Peter Jørgensen, director of the Industry Association for Generic and Biosimilar Medicines (IGL), suggests that supply problems often stem from difficulties in obtaining active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). He questions the feasibility of a public producer achieving the same cost-effectiveness as private companies and recommends building a state stockpile of critical medicines instead.

Medicine supply problems are a global issue, driven by complex supply chains and market consolidation. The EU has launched a legal act on “critical medicines” to strengthen European production capacity. Stine Bosse, vice-chair of the European Parliament’s health committee, highlights the importance of a two-pronged approach involving both national preparedness and EU-level action.