Europe’s shared picture of medicine supply begins with one list. The European Medicines Agency publishes a catalogue of the shortages it has assessed, the ones that affect, or are likely to affect, more than one EU country. It is not every shortage on the continent: national agencies keep their own registers. It provides a cross-border view. Our 15 September snapshot contains 29 ongoing shortage entries for human medicines, spanning chemotherapy, insulin, antipsychotics, a tuberculosis antibiotic, an anti-parasitic, an eye treatment and a burns gel.
Our classification groups 18 entries chiefly under manufacturing or supply constraints, four under demand pressures, and seven under commercial decisions or discontinuation. Some entries have overlapping causes, and withdrawals can concern particular presentations or markets rather than an entire medicine across Europe.
What the list shows
The faults are the failures of a lean supply chain. A filling line breaks. A quality control test develops a problem. A plant pauses for repairs after an inspection. These shortages may ease as production recovers, though expected recovery dates vary and some remain uncertain.