India is facing a critical nationwide shortage of two key chemotherapy drugs , cisplatin and carboplatin, driven by soaring global platinum raw material costs, West Asia shipping route disruptions, and domestic price caps. private hospitals in many parts are still facing a crunch While government hospitals in several States have managed to stabilise supplies. For patients, this has meant interruptions or delays in life-saving treatment.
In response, the government last month raised temporarily ceiling rates for the two drugs by 50%, to help restart halted domestic manufacturing lines.
“The cheapest drug, cisplatin, a first-generation platinum drug, is not available. Carboplatin and oxaliplatin, which are second and third generation platinum drugs, are considerably more expensive. He added that they have managed up until now with available stocks, and that through medical oncology forums, significant efforts have been made to inform the necessary authorities. The disruptions are leading to treatment delays, changes in chemotherapy regimens and additional financial and psychological stress for patients and their families, warned Smitha Saldanha, consultant in medical oncology at HCG Cancer Hospital, K.R. Road, Bengaluru. “We were beginning to get worried too, as we could not get any response for the purchase tenders we floated.
At the Cancer Institute (WIA), Adyar, in Chennai, Kalpana Balakrishnan, chief executive officer and medical director, said that the shortage has been ongoing for nearly seven months due to the war and has had significant impacts.
Sujith Kumar Mullapally, senior consultant – medical oncology, Apollo Proton Cancer Centre, Chennai said that the hospital has not received cisplatin and carboplatin from its regular companies for a long time now and was depending on companies which are Indian generic companies. Amit Rauthan, head of medical oncology, immunotherapy and precision medicine at Manipal Hospital, Old Airport Road, Bengaluru, said cisplatin and carboplatin are also critical in treating childhood cancers such as neuroblastoma, hepatoblastoma, germ cell tumours and retinoblastoma, and that their therapeutic role cannot be easily replaced by alternative medicines. The immediate fallout, said, Sandeep Nayak, chairman of oncology, MACS-Renova Oncology Institute, KIMS Hospital, Bengaluru lands directly on cancer patients: while alternative treatment regimens exist, they are generally less effective, non-standard, and can carry higher costs or different toxicity profiles. Bhawna Sirohi, medical oncologist and medical director of Vedanta Medical Research Foundation, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, said for patients this may mean a compromise on curative cancer treatment. At the Regional Cancer Centre, Kerala in Thiruvananthapuram, treatment was not disrupted as the hospital had adequate stock of platinum-based drugs to tide over a few months, said director, R Rejnishkumar. But now that the government has revised the prices, our purchase process is going forward and I am told that we will get new stock soon,” Dr. Rejnish said.
