[PapaBear3625]

Some experts pointedly note that pricier brand-name drugs seldom are in short supply. The Food and Drug Administration agrees that the overarching problem is that fewer and fewer manufacturers produce these older, cheaper generic drugs, especially the harder-to-make injectable ones. So if one company has trouble -- or decides to quit making a particular drug -- there are few others able to ramp up their own production to fill the gap, says Valerie Jensen, who heads FDA's shortage office.

This is the main paragraph. What happens is that generics are cheaper -- and since they are cheaper, and carry such a narrow profit margin, companies are not going to jump to make them.

Meanwhile, cash-strapped hospitals are not going to maintain inventories of critical meds, instead depending on "just in time" deliveries. And distributors are not going to maintain inventories, due to how IRS taxes inventory as assets at the end of the fiscal year. So any interruption of the distribution chain means that people will die.

[tenger]

The problem is the FDA. When it costs a pharma $500 million to $1 billion to get a drug to market, there’s a serious problem. Get the gov. out of the way and reduce the time and money it takes to get a viable, effective drug to the patients.

[LibertyLA]

” And distributors are not going to maintain inventories, due to how IRS taxes inventory as assets at the end of the fiscal year.”

You have that exactly right - the way the tax code is written it just makes doing business the right way impossible. IRS should be dismantled and let people and businesses run their own lives. It’s all part of the “government knows better” nonsense that is destroying us.

[Brilliant]

“generics are cheaper — and since they are cheaper, and carry such a narrow profit margin, companies are not going to jump to make them.”

But if there is a shortage of generics, then why doesn’t the price rise to eliminate the shortage and make it worthwhile to produce them?? It’s gotta be an artifact of some kind of price regulation. Probably the insurance companies or government simply won’t pay more than they are for a generic.