{"id":19909,"date":"2019-05-15T21:05:02","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T21:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2019\/05\/15\/drugmaker-created-to-reduce-shortages-and-prices-unveils-its-first-products\/"},"modified":"2019-05-15T21:05:02","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T21:05:02","slug":"drugmaker-created-to-reduce-shortages-and-prices-unveils-its-first-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/drugmaker-created-to-reduce-shortages-and-prices-unveils-its-first-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Drugmaker Created To Reduce Shortages And Prices Unveils Its First Products"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Selena Simmons-Duffin<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Pharmacy technician Peggy Gillespie fills a syringe with an antibiotic at ProMedica Toledo Hospital in Toledo, Ohio, in January.<\/p>\n

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Tony Dejak\/AP<\/p>\n

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Tony Dejak\/AP<\/p>\n

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On Wednesday, Civica Rx<\/a>, a nonprofit drug company founded last year by a consortium of hospitals and foundations, said it had entered an agreement with a Danish drugmaker to make available injected forms of vancomycin and daptomycin, two antibiotics that are often in short supply.<\/p>\n

Civica Rx has plans to become an alternative source of generic drugs for hospitals and provide a steady supply of critical medicines at reasonable prices . <\/p>\n

The company’s initial plan is to make 14 drugs and offer them to member health systems. The antibiotics are the first two that Civica Rx has publicly announced. <\/p>\n

“Vancomycin is kind of the typical shortage drug because it’s generic and it’s an injectable and it’s critically needed,” says Erin Fox<\/a>, a pharmacist who studies drug shortages at University of Utah Health, one of Civica Rx’s members. “But we just haven’t had a very good routine supply of it for a while now,” she explains. She also recently joined Civica Rx’s advisory board. <\/p>\n

When the heavy-duty antibiotic vancomycin is in short supply, Dr. James Augustine, an emergency physician at Mercy Health<\/a> hospitals in Cincinnati, gets worried. <\/p>\n