'It's life and death' - Norfolk woman's fears over shortage of life-saving pancreas drug
Lisa Woods told ITV News Anglia's Rob Setchell about her situation
A grandmother who only has a month's supply of life-saving drugs left says she is worried she is going to die.
Lisa Woods does not have a working pancreas - the organ which breaks down sugars, fats and starches in the body - and relies on a drug called Creon to do that instead.
But the drug, a form of pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (PERT) made in the US, is the latest to suffer a worldwide shortage and pharmacists have been told to tell patients like Ms Woods to find alternatives as Creon will not be readily available again until 2026.
Supplies of many of the alternative solutions are now also running low, though the Department of Health and Social Care said it was working closely with the industry to ensure a supply of treatments for patients.
Ms Woods, from North Walsham in Norfolk, has been taking Creon around four times a day since 2020. The 52-year-old said the situation was "a matter of life and death".
"I just assumed the GP would be able to prescribe a different medicine but I found out they had already been doing that so the alternates are not available. So it was a matter of life and death."
She added: "I'm nearly at the point of giving up. I've searched everywhere on the internet, high and low to find some support but as yet not found anything.
"It's scary because there are other people, lots of other people, who are probably unaware until they go to put the repeat prescription in and then it's not going to be there.
"Without Creon I won't live. I won't survive. It's not a drug that you can let get to the point where there isn't any."
After pleading with her medical team for two weeks, Ms Woods has been given a month's supply of Creon, but with no guarantees of any more.
The charity Pancreatic Cancer UK estimates upwards of 60,000 people in the UK depend on the drug, which is a form of PERT.
Different patient groups use PERT, including those with pancreatic cancer, cystic fibrosis and chronic pancreatitis.
On 24 May 2024 a National Patient Safety Alert was issued for the shortage of PERT. It advised clinicians to only prescribe one month's supply of Creon at a time.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “We have inherited ongoing global supply problems that continue to impact the availability of medicines, including Creon.
“We know how distressing this can be for patients and we are working closely with industry, the NHS and others in the supply chain to mitigate the risk to patients and make sure alternative products are available until their usual treatments are back in stock.”
The US pharmaceutical company Viatris, which produces the drug, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The pharmaceutical industry has struggled to meet demand for a number of medications in recent years.
Mark Dayan of the independent health think-tank The Nuffield Trust said: "Over the last couple of years we've seen medicine shortage on almost every metric we can look at go up across the board.
"And at the moment it really is unfortunately jumping from condition to condition.
"Often what we are seeing is one product will go on shortage and then the neighbouring ones that people try to substitute also go on shortage because more and more people use those.
"It's a complex problem. To some extent it goes across countries but I think it's one of the biggest problems facing patients and pharmacists across the NHS and in some cases it's genuinely dangerous."
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