The war in the Middle East, sparked by the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran two weeks ago has had a disruptive effect on various industries — including oil, restaurants and travel. Reports now reveal that the pharmaceutical industry has also been affected, with the supply of lifesaving drugs being threatened.
The conflict has disrupted significant supply routes to the Gulf, for cancer drugs and other treatments that require refrigeration and forcing companies to reroute flights and find overland access into the region, according to the industry executives.
The conflict has knocked out key air transit hubs and closed shipping routes, disrupting the movement of goods for many products from medicines to food and oil. While there are few signs yet of major shortages, that could change if the conflict drags on, some executives said. The Gulf relies heavily on imports and some medicines have short shelf lives and need strict cold-chain storage, making lengthy overland shipping less practical.
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Executives at Western drug companies said they were seeking alternative routes into the Gulf and trucking some drugs overland from airports like Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Other options were Istanbul and Oman.
Many major airports in the region, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha have been closed due to strikes by Iran in response to U.S. and Israeli attacks. Dubai and Doha are major cargo hubs linking Europe with Asia and Africa, with airlines Emirates and Etihad and logistics firms such as DHL handling temperature-sensitive drugs that must be kept within a narrow range to remain safe and effective.
One executive cautioned that alternative “cold-chain corridors,” or temperature-controlled routes used for sensitive medicines, could not be set up overnight and were not always available.
Another executive said it had set up internal teams to prioritize patient-critical shipments, including of cancer treatments, and warned some temperature-controlled shipments could miss connections unless proper storage and handling were secured. A medical device company executive said the first step was to map shipments already in transit or ready to depart, then decide which pallets needed to be diverted and whether new shipments had to be planned.
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Prashant Yadav, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said stocks of short shelf-life, temperature-sensitive and more expensive medicines were usually around three months, with cancer drugs, particularly monoclonal antibodies, among those at highest risk. Delays in the delivery of these medicines can have dire consequences for patients, who may be forced to restart a course of therapy, or see their cancer worsen.
Yadav said that the disruption was already a problem for some companies, with some customers warning they could run low on supplies within four to six weeks if things did not improve. Over 100 pharma and logistics industry participants joined a webinar last week hosted by Pharma.Aero, a life sciences logistics group, to discuss the Gulf crisis and its supply-chain and transport implications.