Pancreatic cancer patient ‘left in lurch’ due to global shortage of medication that helps him digest food

A pancreatic cancer patient says he has been “left in the lurch” by a shortage of medication he depends on to digest food.

Dan Godley, 31, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of 28 and has needed enzyme replacement therapy drug Creon ever since.

But a global supply shortage means Mr Godley is among 60,000 patients who could be experiencing difficulties accessing the medication.

Creon supports the breaking down of fat and help patients get the nutrients needed from food.

“Depending on how much fat is in the meal, will kind of change how much of the medication you need to take,” Mr Godley explains.

Putting it in language everyone can understand, he says: “For something like pizza, that’s a very high-fat meal, I would probably take 15 of the tablets in one meal… probably 30 on average each day.”

Mr Godley says ordinarily he would be prescribed around 10 bottles a month, but “the most I have had from my pharmacy in the last five months is three bottles”.

“There was one time in particular, where I called over 25 pharmacies in London… I couldn’t get a single bottle from anywhere”.

Mr Godley says he is lucky, though.

He has help from family members who travel almost 200 miles from Cheshire to London, where, for now, Creon can be sourced.

But he worries this process is complicated and unsustainable.

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“It is just really difficult to deal with it. It adds to the stress so much. It makes you just feel like you’ve been left in the lurch” says Mr Godley.

Ali Stunt, founder of Pancreatic Cancer Action, says the lack of supply means “patients are sort of self-rationing their tablets, and altering their diet in order to make the supply they’ve got stretch a little further”.

Ms Stunt explains the shortage is due to a “manufacturing supply issue” which she says “could go on until 2026 at the earliest”.

She says while it’s clear the shortage is global, other countries such as America and Australia “don’t seem so badly affected”.

She says: “So it really is, the onus is on our government to do something for our patients here in the UK to actually try and initiate supply, where that be from abroad or other means so we can get these drugs to our patients and stop them suffering.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We know how frustrating and distressing medicine supply issues can be for patients, and the pharmacists and clinicians caring for them. “This government inherited a broken NHS alongside global supply problems that continue to impact the availability of medicines, including Creon, and we are working closely with industry, the NHS, manufacturers and other partners in the supply chain to resolve current issues as quickly as possible.”