Häusermann writes to Speranza and Magrini: "Regions should plan drug supplies for the Covid emergency"
Alarm of the pharmaceutical companies involved in the AIFA crisis unit: it is urgent to quantify the needs of medicines to face the second wave of the pandemic
– Intensive care is once again close to the alert threshold and the alarm is also triggered by the pharmaceutical industries 
called as in the first wave of the pandemic to ensure continuity in the supply of necessary medicines both in the first hospital line and in the second home line for less serious cases.
To signal the risks deriving from the lack of planning of needs by the Regions, in a letter sent today to the Minister of Health, Robert Hope and to the general manager of AIFA, Nicholas Magrini, is the president EGULIA, (formerly Assogenerici), Enrique Häusermann.
«Since last March, the trade associations of the drug industry in Italy have been working tirelessly with the Crisis Unit set up at AIFA, to guarantee adequate stocks of medicines used for the management of treated patients, inside and outside the intensive care, for SARS COV-2 disease. Since then, the institutional collaboration has never stopped», writes Häusermann.
«In recent weeks - continues President Egualia - in the face of the progress of the spread of the virus, through the aforementioned Crisis Unit we have increased the level of attention to the need for preventive storage of essential drugs, especially for intensive care. For about 4 months there has been constant dialogue with the Regions for a project to quantify needs, capable of guaranteeing an adequate supply of the necessary medicines for the future. But the signs of a response to this project by the regional authorities are, at the moment, very partial and often inconsistent".
Hence the explicit request to Speranza to "raise awareness of the Regions so that they proceed with the quantification of safety needs and provide for the purchase of the quantities of necessary medicines, allowing the Crisis Unit to respond effectively to every possible scenario".
The effect of the lack of planning worries the pharmaceutical industry, which operates through a global supply chain called to respond to the needs of all the continents affected by the pandemic.
"If we were to meet again a massive demand for medicines for intensive care without adequate planning and without the provision of specific safety stocks, the activation of the production chain cannot take place with the expected speed - concludes Häusermann - And this scenario moreover, it could not even be mitigated by any stocks at the regional level which, instead of being maintained after the most critical phase, were sent back to the pharmaceutical companies through return procedures or cancellation of orders already sent".
Egualia press release - 2 November 2020
