Assessing the Association

Between Pharmaceutical
Pricing and Drug Shortages
in Saudi Arabia

Drug Shortage Concepts among Stakeholders in Saudi Arabia

Malak Almutairi, Salwa Almomen, Haya Alhazzani ,Bushra

OP13
Almutairi ,Arwa Alenzi and Radwan Hafiz

Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA)

internal records showed that several
pharmaceutical entities are overlapping in
their tasks within the system of drug
availability in the Saudi market. This may have
led to a discrepancy in the awareness and
understanding of drug shortage concepts and
request process that has been observed by
SFDA among stakeholders when reporting
drug unavailability or shortage.
Additionally, since the pandemic has impacted
multiple pharmaceutical companies and health
care institutions Therefore, the impact of
COVID-19 on drug shortage was also
explored in our study.
A cross-sectional study consisting of three
separate surveys targeting:
• Health care providers registered in Drug
Track and Trace System (RSD) and Saudi-
vigilance
• Pharmaceutical companies/storage that
are registered in (RSD), and National
Unified Procurement Company
(NUPCO).
• Descriptive analysis such as percentages
and frequencies was preformed. to
describe the knowledge and the practice
of the targeted stakeholders.
- To identify stakeholders' understanding of
drug shortage and the internal process of
reporting a drug shortage to the SFDA.
- To evaluate the satisfaction of stakeholder's
on services of SFDA drug availability
department.
- To explore the impact of COVID-19 on drug
shortage in Saudi Arabia.
Drug shortages was defined by healthcare institutions as
the unavailability of the product in the agent's stocks
and by NUPCO as zero stock, and confirmation by
pharmaceutical companies of product unavailability.
Positive Feedback on drug availability services; 55%
supplying agents compliance, 69% drug availability
improvement and 89% SFDA contribution to facilitate
drug availability. Satisfaction was reported by (47%) of
healthcare institutions and (43%) of pharmaceutical
companies on RSD reporting system.
COVID-19 pandemic impact on drug shortages: Most
pharmaceutical company identified highest impact on
different medication groups (39.7%) and antibiotics
(22.2%). Most Healthcare institutions identified highest
impact on antiviral medications (80%).
Most of the stakeholders had a positive feedback
and good satisfaction rate on services of SFDA drug
availability department.