The Persistence of Ophthalmic Scarcity: A 23-Year Longitudinal Analysis of Drug Shortages in the United States

Highlights

• Ophthalmic medications represent a disproportionate 15% of all active drug shortages in the United States.
• The median duration of an ophthalmic drug shortage is 326 days, significantly exceeding the 298-day median observed for non-ophthalmic medications (p=0.023).
• Patent protection serves as a critical buffer; off-patent ophthalmic drugs experience shortages nearly twice as long as patent-protected counterparts (359 vs. 184 days).
• Anti-infective agents (35%) and steroids (26%) constitute the majority of ophthalmic supply disruptions, posing severe risks to vision preservation.

Background