Patient Associations
Accelerate the development of new therapies.
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Americas
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Asia & Oceania
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A-I
J-Z
EMEA Thought Leadership
Developing IQVIA’s positions on key trends in the pharma and life sciences industries, with a focus on EMEA.
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Middle East & Africa
EMEA Thought Leadership
Developing IQVIA’s positions on key trends in the pharma and life sciences industries, with a focus on EMEA.
Learn more
Regions
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Americas
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Asia & Oceania
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Europe
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Middle East & Africa
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Americas
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Asia & Oceania
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Europe
Europe
- Adriatic
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Czech Republic
- Deutschland
- España
- France
- Greece
- Hungary
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italia
EMEA Thought Leadership
Developing IQVIA’s positions on key trends in the pharma and life sciences industries, with a focus on EMEA.
Learn more -
Middle East & Africa
EMEA Thought Leadership
Developing IQVIA’s positions on key trends in the pharma and life sciences industries, with a focus on EMEA.
Learn more
SOLUTIONS
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Research & Development
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Real World Evidence
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Commercialization
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Safety & Regulatory Compliance
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Technologies
LIFE SCIENCE SEGMENTS
HEALTHCARE SEGMENTS
- Information Partner Services
- Financial Institutions
- Global Public Health
- Government
- Patient Associations
- Payers
- Providers
THERAPEUTIC AREAS
- Cardiovascular
- Cell and Gene Therapy
- Central Nervous System
- GI & Hepatology
- Infectious Diseases and Vaccines
- Oncology
- Pediatrics
- Rare Diseases
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Impacting People's Lives
"We strive to help improve outcomes and create a healthier, more sustainable world for people everywhere.
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Harness the power to transform clinical development
Reimagine clinical development by intelligently connecting data, technology, and analytics to optimize your trials. The result? Faster decision making and reduced risk so you can deliver life-changing therapies faster.
Research & Development OverviewResearch & Development Quick Links
Real World Evidence. Real Confidence. Real Results.
Generate and disseminate evidence that answers crucial clinical, regulatory and commercial questions, enabling you to drive smarter decisions and meet your stakeholder needs with confidence.
REAL WORLD EVIDENCE OVERVIEWReal World Evidence Quick Links
See markets more clearly. Opportunities more often.
Elevate commercial models with precision and speed using AI-driven analytics and technology that illuminate hidden insights in data.
COMMERCIALIZATION OVERVIEWCommercialization Quick Links
Service driven. Tech-enabled. Integrated compliance.
Orchestrate your success across the complete compliance lifecycle with best-in-class services and solutions for safety, regulatory, quality and medical information.
COMPLIANCE OVERVIEWSafety & Regulatory Compliance Quick Links
Intelligence that transforms life sciences end-to-end.
When your destination is a healthier world, making intelligent connections between data, technology, and services is your roadmap.
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COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS
COMPLIANCE, SAFETY, REG PRODUCTS
BLOGS, WHITE PAPERS & CASE STUDIES
Explore our library of insights, thought leadership, and the latest topics & trends in healthcare.
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An in-depth exploration of the global healthcare ecosystem with timely research, insightful analysis, and scientific expertise.
SEE LATEST REPORTSFEATURED INNOVATIONS
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IQVIA Connected Intelligence™
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IQVIA Healthcare-grade AI™
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IQVIA AI Assistant
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Human Data Science Cloud
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IQVIA Innovation Hub
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Decentralized Trials
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Patient Experience Solutions with Apple devices
WHO WE ARE
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NEWS & RESOURCES
Unlock your potential to drive healthcare forward
By making intelligent connections between your needs, our capabilities, and the healthcare ecosystem, we can help you be more agile, accelerate results, and improve patient outcomes.
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IQVIA AI is Healthcare-grade AI
Building on a rich history of developing AI for healthcare, IQVIA AI connects the right data, technology, and expertise to address the unique needs of healthcare. It's what we call Healthcare-grade AI.
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Meet the IQVIA AI Assistant
Your new expert analyst is here. Be at the forefront of data-driven decision-making with a new generative AI tool that enables you to interact with our products and solutions like never before. Get results you can trust, faster.
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Your healthcare data deserves more than just a cloud.
The IQVIA Human Data Science Cloud is our unique capability designed to enable healthcare-grade analytics, tools, and data management solutions to deliver fit-for-purpose global data at scale.
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Innovations make an impact when bold ideas meet powerful partnerships
The IQVIA Innovation Hub connects start-ups with the extensive IQVIA network of assets, resources, clients, and partners. Together, we can help lead the future of healthcare with the extensive IQVIA network of assets, resources, clients, and partners.
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Proven, faster DCT solutions
IQVIA Decentralized Trials deliver purpose-built clinical services and technologies that engage the right patients wherever they are. Our hybrid and fully virtual solutions have been used more than any others.
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IQVIA Patient Experience Solutions with Apple devices
Empowering patients to personalize their healthcare and connecting them to caregivers has the potential to change the care delivery paradigm.
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Our mission is to accelerate innovation for a healthier world. Together, we can solve customer challenges and improve patient lives.
LEARN MORELIFE AT IQVIA
Careers, culture and everything in between. Find out what’s going on right here, right now.
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WE’RE HIRING
"Improving human health requires brave thinkers who are willing to explore new ideas and build on successes. Unleash your potential with us.
SEARCH JOBSInstitute Report
Drug Shortages in the U.S. 2023
A closer look at volume and price dynamics
Nov 15, 2023
Report Summary
Drug shortages have recently received widespread news coverage for their impact on patient care and public health. The number of drug shortages in the U.S. is increasing as more shortages continue to be reported than resolved. Stakeholders have recommended various approaches to mitigate shortages, such as prioritizing essential medicines, stockpiling, and making changes to reimbursement or statutory rebates. Shortages appear to be driven by a variety of causes that need to be better understood, as they may impact which solutions will best address them.
In this report, shortages reported by the Food and Drug Administration are assessed in conjunction with sales and volume data of these medicines in the U.S. market. Characteristics of shortages, including product type, form, and the number of manufacturers are evaluated.
Market concentration is assessed for molecules with shortages based on current sales data. The causes and impacts of shortages across a range of therapy areas are analyzed and presented here.
Key findings:
- Over the past five-and-a-half years, an average of more than 25 new molecule shortages have occurred annually, with 160 in total added through June of 2023 and only 51 resolved.
- Resolved shortages have been more clustered in time without a steady pattern, with the largest number being resolved in the second and third year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- For the currently active shortages affecting 132 molecules, 75% have been active for more than a year and 58% have been ongoing for more than two years.
- The concentration of market share among competitors is a key indicator of the potential resilience of the market to an unexpected driver of shortages and can be measured with the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI).
- Natural disasters, active or inactive ingredient supply issues, as well as disruptions to packaging materials such as vials can all contribute to manufacturing supply issues, and when those issues affect a significant share of a molecule, shortages may result.
- Another driver of disruptions has been regulatory oversight, where FDA inspections have triggered shutdowns of some sites and where those companies are leading suppliers of a medicine, the shortages are difficult for their peers to resolve.
- Shortages are more common in drugs with very low list prices, with 11% (70 of 631) of drugs priced less than $1.00 per extended unit in shortage, compared to 1.3% (3 of 238) of those priced more than $500 per unit.
- Low priced drugs (<$1) accounted for 56% of the 125 drugs in shortage with reported volume in this analysis.
- An extended unit is defined as a milliliter for some injections, and as a pill for oral solids. These variations notwithstanding, more than half of shortages are affecting drugs with very low list prices.
- As of June 2023, there are eight cancer medicines with active shortages while five other medicines have seen shortages over the last five years that have resolved.
- Oncology has seen a growing number of shortages since 2020, with four new molecule shortages between March and June 2023: cisplatin, methotrexate, capecitabine, and carboplatin.
- Although there are shortages having significant impacts across these molecules, the volume in shortage accounts for only 9% of the total oncology volume in June 2023, and overall oncology volume continues to grow, up 6% from June 2022.