ASCO has been engaged in an effort to address the oncology drug shortage crisis at the national level for more than a year. As part of this effort, the Society is working closely with the Food and Drug Administration and national media to raise awareness about a current shortage of preservative-free methotrexate, a critical treatment for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), as well as other child and adult cancers.

Approximately 3,500 children and teenagers are diagnosed with ALL each year. While cure rates are typically 90 percent, the risk of death dramatically increases without methotrexate.

After learning late last week that institutions are reporting that they have a two-week supply of the drug left and were unable to obtain additional supply, ASCO and the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) contacted FDA to share their knowledge of the shortage and offer its assistance in raising awareness, and contacted the news media to draw attention to the problem.

ASCO believes that FDA should have the support and resources necessary to solve this problem immediately with manufacturers.

“This is a crisis that I hope the FDA’s hard work can help to avert,” ASCO President Dr. Michael Link stated in a February 11 article in The New York Times on the shortage. “We have worked very hard to take what was an incurable disease and make it curable for 90 percent of the cases. But if we can’t get this drug anymore, that sets us back decades.”

ABCNews also covered the crisis, interviewing Dr. Peter Adamson, MD, chair of the Children’s Oncology Group and Chief of the Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics division at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and ASCO’s Dr. Link.

The targeted outreach also resulted in coverage of the methotrexate shortage and ASCO’s perspective in the Associated Press, Forbes.com, msnbc.com, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune. 

In addition to continuing its work with FDA and media, ASCO, COG, and the American Society of Pediatric Hematology Oncology on February 13 also contacted Sandoz, Mylan and Hospira, the manufacturers of preservative-free methotrexate, as well as AAP Pharmaceuticals, which makes preserved methotrexate, and encouraged them to prioritize production of this critical therapy. On February 14, Hospira issued a statement saying that it is now working towards increasing production to avert a second shortage.

Please continue to visit ASCO in Action for the latest information on this crisis.