There are 125 drugs currently unavailable in the U.S. ranging from treatments for allergies and arthritis to a blood pressure drug that doesn't have many alternatives, according to the FDA.
Jason Chou, PharmD, Ochsner Health's vice president of pharmacy services, recently told Becker's he's concerned about dobutamine, which is experiencing manufacturing issues.
"Dobutamine has been a challenge off-and-on and that's a very important drug for the treatment of heart failure patients with not a lot of other alternatives," Dr. Chou said.
The agency's report on current and resolved drug shortages, which is updated daily, includes seven more drugs on backlog than its list in June contained. On Jan. 11, 114 drugs were in shortage.
The most recent drugs in shortage include oxytocin injection, which is used during labor, and fludarabine phosphate injection, a treatment for adult patients with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia.