The source of this article: Times Finance Author: Li Aohua
Image source: Tu Wo Creative
“Why is methylprednisolone out of stock?”
“Do you have any more methylprednisolone available? If I can’t buy it, I will stop taking the medicine soon!”
“The price of methylprednisolone is skyrocketing.”
Times Finance recently discovered that many netizens said on social platforms that the drug methylprednisolone was widely out of stock.
Methylprednisolone is a synthetic glucocorticoid with strong anti-inflammatory effect. Endocrine disorders, rheumatic diseases, collagen venereal diseases, skin diseases, allergic reactions, ophthalmic diseases, gastrointestinal diseases and other diseases are treated. Currently, it is mainly used for organ transplantation in clinical practice.
In 1954, methylprednisolone tablets were first approved for marketing in the United States under the trade name of Medrol. The original research company was Pfizer. After decades of clinical use, it has been One of the most common hormonal drugs.
A lupus erythematosus patient told Times Finance that methylprednisolone is the basic drug that many lupus erythematosus patients just need, but when he went to the hospital for a follow-up visit about half a month ago, he found that the hospital could not prescribe it. Metso.
On September 28, Times Finance visited a number of offline retail pharmacies in Guangzhou and found that Metso has been out of stock in many pharmacies, and only a few pharmacies can still find Metso on the shelves. Happy, but there are only a few boxes left in stock.
“You don’t need to look for it, I estimate that it will be difficult to buy Metso within half a year.” A person in charge of a pharmacy said frankly to Times Finance.
On the other hand, B2C pharmaceutical procurement platforms such as “Yaojingcai” show that there are very few distribution companies that still have Metsolot stocks.
Metso is hard to find in offline pharmacies, and the price of Metso on the pharmaceutical e-commerce platform is also soaring. On an e-commerce platform, Metso’s price has risen to 90-150 yuan per box (4mg*30 tablets). This figure is 3 to 5 times higher than the previous price.
The above-mentioned lupus erythematosus patient told Times Finance that a box of Metsolot used to cost only 20 to 30 yuan, and some seriously ill patients needed to take 12 to 13 tablets a day, and the price of the drug was huge. A rise would be a heavy financial burden on them.
“The price increase is mainly because the procurement cost has also increased.” A staff member of a pharmacy told Times Finance.
As to the reason for Metso’s out of stock, Times Finance contacted Pfizer (China) as a patient. Relevant staff said that Metso’s production line is abroad, and its production has been greatly affected by the epidemic. . “Metso has not stopped production. Due to the epidemic, the supply from our factory will be a little slower, but it has been shipped recently. However, (in some areas) may not have arrived so quickly, and it depends on the local pharmacy. situation.”
According to the American Society of Health System Pharmacists (ASHP) drug shortage report, methylprednisolone for injection is also in short supply in the United States, which Pfizer explained is due to increased demand and manufacturing caused by the delay.
According to the information of the State Food and Drug Administration, in addition to the original manufacturer Pfizer, domestic manufacturers of methylprednisolone include Zhejiang Xianju Pharmaceutical, Tianjin Jinyao Pharmaceutical and Shandong Lukang Pharmaceutical. However, according to the data of Zhongkang Kaisi, the sales scale of China’s methylprednisolone market in 2021 will be 1.66 billion yuan, while the market share of the original research drug Mettrole is close to 80%.
At present, methylprednisolone tablets have been included in the seventh batch of nationally organized drug collection. The results of the selection show that all the three local pharmaceutical companies mentioned above were shortlisted. Among them, Xianju Pharmaceutical’s selected price is 18.13 yuan/box (16mg*20 tablets), Jinyao Pharmaceutical’s selected price is 8.59 yuan/box (4mg*24 tablets), and Lukang Pharmaceutical’s selected price is 10.8 yuan/box (4mg*30 tablets), while Pfizer is out, and the selection results are expected to be implemented in November 2022.
Yang Zhengfei, deputy director of the emergency department of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, told Times Finance that Metsoline is mainly used for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, allergies, asthma attacks, etc. If you can’t buy it, you can also use other Substitute drugs, such as prednisone (prednisone acetate tablets) and generic versions of methylprednisolone, are basically similar in efficacy to Metsoline.