Tell Teva Pharmaceuticals to keep producing Vincristine to save lives of children!

The Issue

Vincristine is an extremely important chemotherapy given to thousands of children to treat a variety of cancers. As a childhood leukemia survivor, this drug helped save my life. As a pediatric oncology nurse, I see it help save the lives of my patients every day. These kids rely on this drug to survive.

Teva Pharmaceuticals has made a “business decision” to stop producing vincristine. This is causing a nationwide shortage of this important drug. These kids are fighting for their lives, and now they will be losing one of their most important weapons.

Teva is saying that profit is more important than the lives of children. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/health/cancer-drug-shortage.html

avatar of the starter
Liliana HaasPetition Starter
Media inquiries
Victory
This petition made change with 214,499 supporters!

The Issue

Vincristine is an extremely important chemotherapy given to thousands of children to treat a variety of cancers. As a childhood leukemia survivor, this drug helped save my life. As a pediatric oncology nurse, I see it help save the lives of my patients every day. These kids rely on this drug to survive.

Teva Pharmaceuticals has made a “business decision” to stop producing vincristine. This is causing a nationwide shortage of this important drug. These kids are fighting for their lives, and now they will be losing one of their most important weapons.

Teva is saying that profit is more important than the lives of children. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/health/cancer-drug-shortage.html

avatar of the starter
Liliana HaasPetition Starter
Media inquiries

The Decision Makers

Teva Pharmaceuticals
Teva Pharmaceuticals
Responded
“Teva has been working in the best interest of patients and offering the FDA assistance since the company was first made aware that there was a shortage being caused by manufacturing delays of the available product. Offers included importing product from other countries and to begin manufacturing in the US again as quickly as possible. We were assured they would let us know if they needed us to assist. Because vincristine is such a lifesaving medicine – and there is no reliable single supply anticipated in the near term – we will re-introduce the product and plan to manufacture it in our plant in the U.S., which provides the fastest route to market. Product will be available for patients in the U.S. as early in 2020 as possible. It is important to note that Teva has a history of being a strong, responsible corporate partner and when Teva removed vincristine from the market earlier this year there was no indication at all of a possible shortage. In fact, the company was only supplying 3% of the market and without any information to the contrary, anticipated that could quickly and easily be absorbed by the brand manufacturer supplying the other 97%. And as noted, we offered importation from other countries but were assured that was not needed. Teva takes its responsibility to patients seriously, and I encourage you to read more about our efforts in our latest social impact report: https://www.tevapharm.com/files/responsibility/teva_social_impact_report_2018.PDF”
Petition updates
Share this petition
Petition created on October 15, 2019