Drug Authority: stocks of 20 cancer drug ingredients cover less than three months

The Egyptian Drug Authority said stocks of 20 of 156 cancer drug ingredients cover less than three months, stressing that production and imports are regular.
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The Egyptian Drug Authority said in a statement on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, on the status of cancer drugs, that stocks of 20 out of 156 active ingredients in the cancer treatment group cover less than three months, while stocks of 42 ingredients cover between three and six months, and stocks of 94 ingredients cover more than six months. It added that production and imports of the 20 ingredients are proceeding regularly, and that no active ingredient has stocks covering less than one month.

The authority said local stocks of carboplatin cover more than four months, with raw materials sufficient to produce about 600,000 packs, and that imported stocks of it cover 11 to 19 months, with shipments expected in December. It said local and imported stocks of palbociclib cover 6 to 15 months, and that quantities of cyclophosphamide 50 milligrams sufficient for more than a year and a half are still being tested in the authority’s laboratories and will be released after quality procedures are completed.

The authority described the availability of cancer drug groups in the local market as one of “complete regularity and stability,” and urged patients to ask their doctor or pharmacist about local and imported alternatives containing the same active ingredient. The statement comes amid the decline of the pound against the dollar, which raises the cost of importing medicines and their raw materials, and days after statements by the Pharmacists Syndicate on drug prices.

Photo: Calderaegypt92 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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