IG Shortage is Coming

Walter “Kip” Caro started noticing tingling, numbness, and pain in his feet back in 2007. Gradually these symptoms progressed up his legs and into his body to the point where he had to be hospitalized because his torso was affected and he couldn’t breathe. It took three years for doctors to diagnose him with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP). In that time, Kip suffered permanent nerve damage in his
feet.

For the last 11 years, however, Kip has been treated with intravenous immune globulin (IVIG), which has worked like a charm. He never has to worry about his symptoms, unless he can’t get his treatments every three weeks. If he doesn’t, as happened last June when there was a shortage and his infusion center couldn’t get immune globulin (IG) products from their distributor, his disease starts to relapse.

“It was scary,” he says of this experience.

“Over the years, we’ve met people said they could make a change to their treatment schedule, and their symptoms would not be affected,” says Kip’s wife Bonnie Joslin. “But we’ve learned, for Kip, his body just can’t do that.”

Kip feels lucky that Bonnie is such an advocate for him. By the time his infusion center called and told him they weren’t able to get his medication, Bonnie had already been reading about other patients’ experiences
online. She reached out Facebook and was put in touch with CSI Pharmacy, which was able to get Kip hooked up
with home infusions within a week.

“He was already starting to relapse,” Bonnie says. “But CSI pushed it through, and Natalie Edwards in the insurance department worked to get approval. I know it wasn’t easy, but it was like a miracle
happened.”

By early 2021, however, nearly all IG manufacturers expect to see shortages again. This time it’s because pandemic shutdowns earlier in the spring have decreased plasma donations. Plasma is the raw material from which IG and other protein therapies are made. The manufacturing process takes seven to nine months to create IG from donated plasma, so unlike last year’s shortage, this time we know it’s coming and can be prepared.

When IG products are in short supply, rationing does happen. Certain sites of care may stop treating outpatients. If they do treat outpatients, they may limit treatment to primary immune deficiency, Kawasaki disease, and transplant patients.”

That’s because supplies of IG are not universally distributed. Hospitals and infusion centers have contracts with
certain manufacturers or distributors, so they can only get specific brands. Last year, patients like Kip who were served by these sites of care sometimes found their treatments delayed or dropped completely.

Specialty pharmacies like CSI Pharmacy that offer home infusion services, however, have access to more brands
of IVIG as well as subcutaneous immune globulin (SCIG). In 2019, CSI Pharmacy was able to work with patients, their healthcare providers, and their insurance plans to allow them to continue IG treatment in the home.

At times this meant switching to a different brand of IVIG when certain brands were not available. Some patients even switched to subcutaneous (meaning under the skin) infusion after being on the intravenous (IV) form.

While changing to a different product can be scary for patients who have confidence in a brand of IG that is working well for them, please be assured that  a switch can be relatively comfortable if you
work closely with your doctor and pharmacist. The pharmacist can find a brand that is close in formulation to your current brand, for example. If side effects become a problem, the infusion rate can be reduced
and pre-medications prescribed. 

If you depend on IG therapy, now is the time to prepare. We suggest you have a conversation with your provider and current site of care. 

• Ask your provider what other brands are good options if your brand is in short supply, and ask your care site if they are able to obtain one of these brands if needed.
• Ask the site of care if they will prioritize patients if there is a shortage. Will it be based on disease, IgG levels, and/or rationing product by the number of grams or frequency?
• Ask how the site of care handled past shortages.

If it turns out that your site of care does not prioritize patients with your disease or they are unable to obtain your brand of IG, you may want to consider how important is it to you that you continue IG therapy. (Some patients feel comfortable skipping their treatment for a month or two if it means they don’t have to make changes.)

If you’re like Kip, however, and can’t function without regular IG infusions, you’ll need to think about what options are available to enable you to access this treatment. Are you willing to switch brands? Are you willing to move to home infusion? Are you willing to switch to SCIG?

If home infusion becomes your alternative, we urge patients to make that move now. Specialty
pharmacies are more flexible and were less affected during the last shortage, but that may not be the case this time. 

If you are a patient of a specialty pharmacy when this crisis hits, you may be able to get access to IG since they do not ration based on disease and have access to more brands. However, we do not know how the shortage will affect sites of care. 

At CSI, we want to see all patients have access to all brands in their preferred site of care. But we just don’t know what the impact is going to be. We expect this shortage will be across all manufacturers. Patients should understand that this is not going to be a perfect scenario. You may still run into hurdles like access to your preferred brand.

CSI Pharmacy’s patient advocates are available to discuss your options related to IG therapy, regardless of whether or not you are our patient. If we can’t service your needs, we will gladly help you find other resources. No patient should suffer alone.