Current Drug Shortages: Which Medications Are Scarce Today in 2026

Right now, hundreds of essential medications are hard to find in U.S. hospitals and pharmacies. It’s not a temporary glitch-it’s a persistent crisis that’s been building for years. As of January 2026, there are still over 260 active drug shortages, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). These aren’t obscure drugs. They’re the ones doctors rely on to treat cancer, infections, heart failure, and even dehydration. When these medications disappear, patients suffer delays, substitutions with less effective options, or worse-treatment gets canceled entirely.

What Drugs Are in Shortest Supply?

The most critical shortages are in sterile injectables, especially those used in emergency and critical care. Here’s what’s hardest to get right now:

• 5% Dextrose Injection (small volume bags) - This is used to deliver IV medications and hydrate patients. The shortage started in February 2022 and isn’t expected to fully resolve until August 2025, but supply remains tight into early 2026.
• 50% Dextrose Injection - Used to treat severe low blood sugar. This shortage began in December 2021 and won’t end until September 2025. Hospitals are rationing it, and some ERs are switching to oral glucose gel when possible.
• Cisplatin - A key chemotherapy drug for testicular, ovarian, and lung cancers. A 2022 FDA shutdown of a major Indian manufacturing plant cut supply by half. Rationing is now standard, with priority given to patients who respond best to it.
• Vancomycin - One of the last-resort antibiotics for serious bacterial infections. Shortages have spiked since late 2024 due to production delays and rising demand from resistant infections.
• Epinephrine auto-injectors - Used for anaphylaxis. While not completely gone, supply chains are strained, leading to inconsistent availability in pharmacies.
• Levothyroxine - The most common thyroid hormone replacement. A 2024 manufacturing hiccup in Europe caused ripple effects that still echo today.
• GLP-1 agonists (e.g., semaglutide, tirzepatide) - These weight-loss and diabetes drugs have seen demand surge 35% annually since 2020. Manufacturers can’t keep up, and prescriptions are being limited to 30-day fills.

These aren’t random. They cluster in specific categories: 28% of shortages are in central nervous system drugs (like ADHD meds and antipsychotics), 22% are antimicrobials, and 19% are IV fluids and electrolytes. If you’re on any of these, your doctor may already be adjusting your plan.

Why Are These Drugs So Hard to Find?

It’s not one problem-it’s a chain of failures. About 80% of the active ingredients in U.S. drugs come from just two countries: India (45%) and China (25%). These facilities often operate on razor-thin margins, especially for generics. When a single factory fails an FDA inspection, it can knock out half the country’s supply of a drug overnight.

Take cisplatin. One Indian plant made about half of the U.S. supply. When inspectors found poor quality control in 2022, production stopped. No backup. No alternative. Just silence. That’s the norm now.

Then there’s demand. Drugs like semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) went from niche to mainstream in under three years. Manufacturers didn’t scale up fast enough. Now, pharmacies are rationing refills. Even basic IV fluids like saline are in short supply because they’re cheap to make-so companies don’t invest in extra capacity. Why build more when you’re only making pennies per bag?

The FDA tries to help. In 2025, they launched a new reporting portal where hospitals and pharmacists can flag shortages before they hit the public database. In the first three months, they got over 1,200 reports and intervened in 87% of them. But they can’t force companies to make more. They can’t require stockpiles. They can’t stop manufacturers from quitting a low-margin product.

Who’s Getting Hurt?

It’s not just patients. Healthcare workers are drowning in the fallout.

A 2024 AMA survey found that 78% of doctors had to delay treatments because a drug wasn’t available. Nearly half had to switch patients to less effective alternatives. One oncologist in Ohio told the New England Journal of Medicine that she had to tell a 32-year-old with ovarian cancer they couldn’t start cisplatin because the hospital only had enough for three patients that week.

Pharmacists are spending 10+ hours a week just tracking down drugs. Sixty-seven percent say they’ve made a medication error because they had to substitute something unfamiliar. A patient gets the wrong dose. A drug interacts badly. A child gets a syrup instead of an injection because the IV version is gone.

And patients? A 2024 survey by Patients for Affordable Drugs found that 31% of cancer patients experienced treatment delays due to shortages. The average delay? Nearly 15 days. For someone with aggressive cancer, that’s not just inconvenient-it’s life-or-death.

What’s Being Done?

Some fixes are already in motion. In 2025, 47 states let pharmacists substitute equivalent drugs during shortages. But only 19 states let them do it without calling the doctor first. That means extra phone calls, delays, and confusion.

New York is testing a public online map that shows which pharmacies still have scarce drugs in stock. Hawaii’s Medicaid program now allows drugs approved in Canada or the EU if they’re equivalent and safe-something the FDA has never officially endorsed before.

At the federal level, the Drug Shortage Prevention Act now requires manufacturers to report production problems earlier. But enforcement is weak. No penalties. No fines. Just a form.

ECRI, a healthcare safety group, recommends hospitals keep a 30-day emergency stockpile of critical drugs. But only 28% of hospitals can afford it. The cost of storing IV fluids, chemotherapy, and antibiotics for months? Thousands per month. Most just don’t have the budget.

What Can You Do?

If you’re taking a medication that’s in short supply, here’s what to do:

1. Don’t panic. Your doctor or pharmacist is already aware. They’re working on alternatives.
2. Ask if there’s a therapeutically equivalent substitute. For example, if cisplatin isn’t available, carboplatin may be an option. It’s not the same, but it’s still effective for many cancers.
3. Check the ASHP Drug Shortages Database. It’s free, updated daily, and lists what’s scarce, why, and when it might improve.
4. Don’t stockpile. Hoarding makes shortages worse. If you take extra pills, someone else might go without.
5. Call your pharmacy ahead. Don’t assume they have it. Ask if they’ve received a shipment or if they’re on a waitlist.

For chronic conditions like thyroid disease or diabetes, ask your provider about switching to a brand-name version if generics are unavailable. They’re more expensive, but they’re also less likely to be affected by supply chain issues.

What’s Next?

The problem isn’t getting better. The Congressional Budget Office predicts drug shortages will stay above 250 through 2027. If new tariffs on Chinese and Indian pharmaceuticals go through, that number could jump to 350.

Real solutions need money. The U.S. Pharmacopeia is pushing for three changes: tax credits for companies making active ingredients in the U.S., mandatory national stockpiles of top-priority drugs, and a real-time early warning system that connects manufacturers, distributors, and hospitals.

Until then, the system keeps patching itself. A hospital finds a new supplier. A pharmacist finds a substitute. A patient waits. And every day, someone’s treatment is delayed because a pill or injection can’t be made where it’s supposed to be.

This isn’t a glitch. It’s the system working as designed-for profit, not patients.