according to the Food and Drug Administration.
The therapy lutetium Lu 177 vipivotide tetraxetan (Pluvicto), approved in March 2022, will remain in limited supply until the drug’s manufacturer, Novartis, can ramp up production of the drug over the next 12 months.
In a letter in February, Novartis said it is giving priority to patients who have already started the regimen so they can “appropriately complete their course of therapy.” The manufacturer will not be taking any orders for new patients over the next 4-6 months, as they work to increase supply.
“We are operating our production site at full capacity to treat as many patients as possible, as quickly as possible,” Novartis said. “However, with a nuclear medicine like Pluvicto, there is no backup supply that we can draw from when we experience a delay.”
Pluvicto is currently made in small batches in the company’s manufacturing facility in Italy. The drug only has a 5-day window to reach its intended patient, after which time it cannot be used. Any disruption in the production or shipping process can create a delay.
Novartis said the facility in Italy is currently operating at full capacity and the company is “working to increase production capacity and supply” of the drug over the next 12 months at two new manufacturing sites in the United States.
The company also encountered supply problems with Pluvicto in 2022 after quality issues were discovered in the manufacturing process.
Currently, patients who are waiting for their first dose of Pluvicto will need to be rescheduled. The manufacturer will be reaching out to health care professionals with options for rescheduling.
Jonathan McConathy, MD, PhD, told The Wall Street Journal that “people will die from this shortage, for sure.”
Dr. McConathy, a radiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who has consulted for Novartis, explained that some patients who would have benefited from the drug likely won’t receive it in time.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.