Revolution and Policy of the Pharmaceutical Industry in the Middle of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The problem of drug supply shortages can also be caused by extraordinary geopolitical events such as COVID-19. In early 2020, the world was shocked by the outbreak of a new virus, namely The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Since April 2, 2020, COVID-19 has affected more than 200,000 Americans and killed more than 5,000 (Shah, 2019). The COVID-19 pandemic has not hampered the production and delivery of medicines in the first quarter of 2020, although in the following months chemical shipments began to slow down and stockpiles began to dwindle. The existence of the COVID-19 pandemic has made regulators and world leaders aware of the extent to which China dominates the supply of world active pharmaceutical ingredients and chemical raw materials. Ongoing industrial efforts in the US and Europe to rebalance the pharmaceutical chemical supply chain are likely to be driven by government initiatives to ensure domestic drug production. During this pandemic, health workers are living a life full of risks because they have to face the threat of contracting this virus, facing enormous physical and emotional stress. Lack of test equipment, masks, Personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators make things even more difficult. In addition, another big problem that confronts is the shortage of supplies of medicines that are essential for dealing with COVID-19, the shortage of supply of these drugs is expected to get worse over time. It not only affects COVID-19 patients directly but also threatens the health and safety of patients with other diseases. There is also a scarcity of drugs that have been described as promising therapies against COVID-19 such as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Scarcity does not only occur in these two drugs but also in sedative drugs, antibiotics and vasopressors. The scarcity of sedative drugs such as midazolam and propofol is quite worrying because these drugs are needed by patients for intubation (Esther and Vincent, 2020).