A database could help identify and address vulnerabilities in the pharmaceutical supply chain, according to a new bill proposed in the Senate last week – the Mapping America’s Pharmaceutical Supply Act (MAPS), allowing greater preparedness for public health threats overall.
The government-run program would include details such as country of origin, quantity and other key information about critical drug products, weeding out supply chain weaknesses through details to identify issues that could cause shortages or other challenges in times of need. In many cases, the COVID-19 pandemic already highlighted similar shortfalls, and federal agencies struggled to get the supply chain data needed to address shortages.
“As we saw firsthand during the COVID-19 pandemic, federal agencies did not have enough visibility into our reliance on foreign manufacturers and other chokepoints in the supply chain, limiting their ability to anticipate and respond to drug shortages and related challenges,” U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), one of the three sponsors of the bill, said. “This bipartisan legislation will provide the federal government with a more comprehensive understanding of the weaknesses in our pharmaceutical supply chains so we can take steps to address them and prevent future shortages.”
He was joined by U.S. Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Mike Braun (R-IN). The legislative effort also built on past reports from Peters, in 2019 and 2023 respectively, which identified national security concerns over the nation’s reliance on foreign sources for critical drug products, as well as the lack of transparency of pharmaceutical supply chains.
MAPS would seek to counteract this with creation of a federal database under the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The department will then use the information it hosts to make decisions on supply chain threats and ways to increase resiliency through strategic investments in domestic manufacturing. These efforts would then need to be reported to Congress.
“US dependence on pharmaceutical drugs and products from other countries, like communist China, is a major concern for our national security,” Lankford said. “China can cut off supplies at their will, as we saw during the first months of the COVID pandemic when China withheld PPE from OK healthcare providers and families. We should have transparency and diversity in our pharma supply chain so we are never vulnerable to a communist nation for our healthcare needs.”
The bill is backed by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, the American Hospital Association, United States Pharmacopeia and CivicaRx.