The global issue of drug shortages is one that has been highlighted and accelerated by the pandemic, and all types of drugs are liable to this matter.
The availability of medicine is often dependent on factors such as manufacturing, logistics, accessibility of raw materials, increased demand for products and the inconsistency of seasonal demand.
Due to COVID, governments around the world are finding it increasingly difficult to mitigate these circumstances and keep up with the extremely high demand of some COVID related medicines and supplies.
Recently in the pharmaceutical world, all eyes have been on the USA and in particular their handling of procuring COVID related drugs to successfully manage the tremendously high demand they’ve witnessed in the past year and a half. In comparison to this, in the last month alone, the drug Actemra ‐ molecularly known as Tocilizumab, has witnessed such a surge in demand that it reached critical level and as a result is now in shortage.
The drug was recently recommended by the World Health Organization to treat critically ill hospitalized COVID patients and since then, there has been an obvious worldwide demand for this drug.
The Pharma14 platform has an integrated drug shortage module that allows you to view, track and compare worldwide drug shortages, easily defined by each country.
The data tracks the product names, active ingredients, MA holder data, reporting date, estimated shortage starting date, expected renewal date and more, allowing you to track this data in real time, because our database is regularly updated.

Sample data: Dexamethasone US shortages reported March 2022