The Drug Enforcement Agency has yet to adequately address previous mismanagement issues that led to prescription drug shortages, the Government Accountability Office said on Wednesday.
In its initial 2015 audit, the GAO found that the DEA ineffectively handled the quota process used to manage the amount of legal drugs available in the U.S.
Drug manufacturers must apply to the agency for quotas to manufacture drugs, and according to the GAO, “DEA did not respond within the time frames required by its regulations for any year from 2001-14, which, according to some manufacturers, caused or exacerbated shortages of drugs.”
In 2015, the GAO made seven recommendations to the agency to solve these problems, and the DEA said it would implement each one.
However, a subsequent report released on Wednesday found that the agency has implemented only two of the changes.
The first recommendation, which was implemented in March 2015, requested that the DEA finalize its information-sharing agreement with the FDA regarding drug shortages.
The second recommendation, which was for the DEA to strengthen internal controls over the quota system, was just implemented this month.
In Wednesday’s report, the GAO maintained that the five remaining original recommendations should still be implemented to prevent any future drug shortages.
According to the GAO, the DEA has now “identified steps it planned to take, including developing performance standards for responsiveness to manufacturers, but has not yet completed these actions.”
