Liz Essley Whyte of The Wall Street Journal reports that a quixotic investor revived an American antibiotic producer and helped ease a drug shortage, but now needs a way to make money. Whyte writes:
A cavernous factory in northeastern Tennessee, by the Virginia border, is one of the last in the country that makes a vitally important medicine.
Each day the USAntibiotics plant churns out a million doses of the crucial antibiotic amoxicillin that promise to cure Americans of everything from earaches to pneumonia—and ease a pressing shortage for children.
But the plant’s prospects are dim. It can’t charge enough to cover overhead, because competitors sell their wares at bargain prices. USAntibiotics isn’t close to breaking even.
“It’s not for lack of trying,” said Rick Jackson, a health-staffing businessman who rescued the factory from near bankruptcy two years ago and has poured more than $38 million into purchasing and refurbishing it.
The generic drug business has become a hostile environment for American companies. Prices for the often critical medicines have dropped so low that it has become difficult for U.S. manufacturers to compete with companies overseas. […]
The number of facilities making generic drugs in their final form in the U.S. has dropped by roughly 20% since 2018, to 243, according to federal data. […]
Jackson is holding out hope the federal government will help the plant. But if it doesn’t in the next year and a half, he said would shut the factory down.
“It’s not a failure yet,” Jackson said. “If there is a way to do it, we’ll figure it out.”
Read more here.
