Af­ter the long, gru­el­ing path to EUA, Roche says there is a sup­ply short­age of Actem­ra

Roche’s drug Actem­ra was grant­ed emer­gency use au­tho­riza­tion by the FDA for Covid-19 de­spite some mixed da­ta, but an 11,000-pa­tient analy­sis soon showed it cut the risk of death. Less than two months af­ter that analy­sis, the com­pa­ny is run­ning out of sup­ply of the drug, and it’s placed the blame on a surge in cas­es cou­pled with de­clin­ing vac­ci­na­tion rates.

There will be a glob­al short­age for “at least the next sev­er­al weeks,” Genen­tech said in a press re­lease Mon­day af­ter­noon. Re­plen­ish­ment is ex­pect­ed by the end of Au­gust, but this short­age may not be the on­ly one if in­fec­tions con­tin­ue to rage at the cur­rent pace, the com­pa­ny added.

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