Improving Antibiotic Availability by Restructuring the Supply Chain : A Case Study Within Sweden

Rising Antimicrobial Resistance is a threat faced all over the world. Bacterial infections that were treatable with antibiotics only a few years ago can now lead to life-threatening conditions. This thesis is part of the work of a large platform, PLATINEA, trying to reduce the rate of new resistances occurring in Sweden by preventing non optimal treatment. Due to shortages of the right antibiotics, suboptimal antibiotics are prescribed, which has shown to be accelerating the resistances among the bacterial populations. This study proposes an information exchange database and a central storage model for critical antibiotics to circumvent stock outs and inconveniences resulting from shortages of medically valuable antibiotics. Through interviewing prominent actors in the Swedish pharmaceutical supply chain an inside into the procurement of antibiotic in Sweden and what concerns are faced by the organs involved was created. Literature studies on occurred shortages of antibiotics in Sweden and the world were examined and possible reasons for these were identified. Examination of governmental efforts and assignments created the context in which gaps were identified that this thesis work could fill. A focus on Benzylpenicillin and Rifampicin were kept throughout the study. The collected data led to the implementation recommendation of two models by this study. An information platform suggested to allow better, faster and more accurate information exchange between all involved actors of the supply chain as well as a centralized storage model for the storage of antibiotics with medically high value in Sweden. Through the implementation of the model systems shortages of critical antibiotics can be circumvented and better availability of information leads to quicker reactions ability to stock outs of other antibiotics