When Hurricane Helene ravaged western North Carolina in September 2024, one of its many victims was a manufacturing plant that made intravenous fluids. The sterile IV solutions produced in the plant are essential supplies for hospitals and other medical facilities, which use them in various treatments, from rehydration to drug delivery and kidney dialysis. And the plant damaged by Helene—Baxter International’s North Cove manufacturing facility in Marion—didn’t just make some of the US supply; it made 60 percent.
With the Baxter plant down, hospitals around the country began rationing supplies. They changed treatment strategies and, in some cases, canceled or delayed surgeries. In one poll, over 86 percent of health care providers said they were affected by the nationwide shortage. The federal government, for its part, loosened importation rules and granted extensions to expiration dates to offer some relief from the dire shortage.
This secondary emergency was yet another reminder of just how fragile the US drug supply chain has become. Just months before the catastrophic hurricane in North Carolina, drug shortages in the US reached an all-time high, with 323 active and ongoing shortages. Although they’ve fallen since then, they remain high, with shortages in the first quarter of this year at 253, according to data collected by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.