Indian cancer patients battle shortage of key drugs as platinum costs surge

Kumar Ajit spent more than a week calling dozens of pharmacies in India before he tracked down the platinum-based cancer drug cisplatin his 70-year old mother needed to treat her liver cancer.

“I could not even get the desired dosage,” added Ajit, who eventually found the medicine in New Delhi, the capital, and had it shipped to his village in the eastern state of Bihar. “I’m unsure what I will do for the next dose.”

The 52-year-old bank employee’s struggle highlights India’s growing shortage of platinum-based cancer drugs, forcing patients to hunt for supplies as hospitals run short, especially those run by the government.

“There has been a supply crunch for two months, but it has become worse over the last two weeks with a shortage,” said Rajiv Singhal, general secretary of the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists, with 1.24 million members.

“Drug distributors have been calling us complaining that they’re not getting these drugs.”

A range of generic drugmakers turns out India’s platinum-based chemotherapy, such as Cipla CIPL.NS and Intas Pharmaceuticals INTA.NS, he said, along with smaller oncology specialists like Naprod Life Sciences and Venus Remedies VENR.NS.

Doctors and drug distributors said supplies of drugs such as cisplatin and carboplatin, used to treat cancers of the lung, ovaries and gall bladder, have been tight in recent weeks.

“I get about 10 calls a day from patients asking for help with cisplatin,” said Pavan Kumar of Kethan Pharma Distributors in the southern tech hub of Hyderabad.

Doctors estimate at least a quarter of India’s chemotherapy patients have been prescribed platinum-based drugs.

“They have been a backbone for cancer treatment,” said Mintu Mathew Abraham, a consultant oncologist at PRS Hospital in the southern coastal state of Kerala. “Without them, it would be hard to continue treatment.”

Platinum prices have rallied on expectations of a fourth consecutive year of market deficits, driven by constrained mine supply, robust investment demand and dwindling inventories as the metal replaces palladium in automotive applications.

Drugmakers are unable to pass on higher costs as the government caps the prices of the medicines, though they have sought an increase of roughly 50% in the price caps.

The struggle to find platinum-based raw material has prompted Naprod Life Sciences to temporarily halt output of cisplatin and carboplatin, for example.

“The shortage is primarily driven by a steep increase in platinum prices,” said company director Mohan Jain, adding that prices over the past year have jumped to