[e-drug] Abandoned essential medicines

["Essential Drugs Project" <edp@gn.apc.org>]

E-DRUG: Abandoned essential medicines
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Dear Dr Dabade and e-drug readers,

Thank you Dr Dabade for drawing attention to the problem of unavailability of essential medicines that lack a sufficient market to attract manufacturers: ferrous sulphate with folic acid is one example.  You tell us that Instead of the scientifically justified, low cost preparation, many irrational combination products appear on the market in India at high prices.

It would be valuable to know of other essential products that are - in the experience of e-drug readers - missing from their markets for the same reason.  We should call these 'abandoned' essential products, no longer accessible because they are no longer made (market failure), or produced at unaffordable prices -sometimes with unjustified unscientific additional ingredients.

On Wednesday WHO is holding an expert group meeting to look at exactly this problem in relation to animal derived sera: products to treat snake bites (anti-venom) and rabies fall into the as yet unmapped category of abandoned, or at-risk, essential products.

A good project for the new year would be for the e-drug community to contribute to a classification of essential drugs and health goods that the market is failing, or has failed.

In this e-mail 3 products have been recorded to begin the classification - I hope the moderators will allow further examples to be added to the list.

best wishes,

Philippa Saunders
Essential Drugs Project
77 Lee Road
Blackheath
London SE3 9EN
UK
tel/fax   44 (0)20 8318 1419
email     edp@gn.apc.org