The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday said that a Gallium citrate GA 67 injection used to diagnose Hodgkin’s disease, lymphoma and bronchogenic carcinoma would soon face a supply shortage, so it is initiating a special import program for the radiopharmaceutical agent.
The FDA in April launched a drug supply report platform to ensure steady supply of essential drugs in response to possible shortages after the COVID-19 pandemic.
FDA Deputy Director Cheng Hwei-fang (陳惠芳) yesterday said that as of Tuesday last week it had handled 664 reports and is still dealing with four others.
Photo: CNA
Among them, 201 reports, or 30.3 percent, were found to have no shortage problem, 379 (57.1 percent) reports resulted in recommendations to use alternative drugs as a temporary substitute, 63 cases (9.5 percent) had a short period of shortage, but quickly resumed normal supply and 21 cases (3.1 percent) did not have alternatives and were subject to open solicitation, Cheng said.
The 21 investigations that showed there was no alternative drugs available included nine with active ingredients, she said.
Eight of the nine have been approved for special import programs and the other, the Gallium citrate injection, is also under an open solicitation process, she added.
There is only one company in Taiwan with a permit to manufacture Gallium citrate, but due to routine maintenance of its equipment, it would temporarily stop producing the drug from Feb. 7 to March 18, Cheng said, adding that as there are no alternative drugs, open solicitation was initiated last month.
FDA Medicinal Products Division senior specialist Yang Bo-wen (楊博文) said the half-life of gallium 67 is about 70 hours, so the drug cannot be mass produced and stored.
It is usually ordered by hospitals when there is clinical demand, Yang said, adding that about 40 vials are used per week.
A vial provides enough of the drug for multiple injections, and the dosage differs according to the patient and the test being done, so it is difficult to estimate how many people might be affected by the shortage, he said.
There is a company that has applied to import the drug and is in the contract signing process, which is expected to help ease the shortage by February, Cheng said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its