Congress urges FDA action to address drug shortages

A bipartisan group of 92 members of Congress yesterday urged the Food and Drug Administration to prioritize the release of an interagency task force report on the root causes of drug shortages and recommendations to address them, noting that the number of new drug shortages rose 27% last year. “Given the detrimental impact drug shortages can have on patient care, we write to urge the FDA to prioritize the release of the Drug Shortages Task Force report,” the group said in a letter to Acting FDA Commissioner Ned Sharpless, M.D., spearheaded by Reps. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and supported by the AHA. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., convened the task force last year to receive stakeholder input on the underlying systemic causes of drug shortages and recommendations to mitigate them.