Supply Chain

Discover how drug shortage announcements drive protective purchasing, impacting supply, demand, and patient access across the U.S. healthcare system.

The globalization of the medicines supply chain has helped to increase access to quality medicines at a lower cost. At the same time, the supply chain has grown longer, more complex, and fragmented, leading to a lack of visibility and increase in the risk to its resilience. In many instances, globalization has also led to the concentration of production in a few geographies. Insights from USP’s Medicine Supply Map demonstrate that geographic concentration of pharmaceutical manufacturing anywhere in the world – including within the United States – increases the risk for drug shortages.