Drug Shortage

Shortage of mercaptopurine tablets

There are compounds called purines that are part of the RNA and DNA in your cells. You can see on the left that mercaptopurine, brand name Purinethol, is very similar to one of them. When you give MP to a patient who has rapidly dividing cancer cells the similarity allows it to be used by the cells and yet it also kills them. Unfortunately people have other rapidly dividing cells in their bodies besides cancer cells, so this is a shotgun approach to a cure, but it does work in combination with other drugs. There are multiple ways it might work, and no one is sure which one might be most important. Perhaps the cumulative effect of the ways it interferes with fast-growing cells is what is important.

According to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, there are currently twenty-one drugs used to combat cancer which are in short supply, including mercaptopurine. These ongoing shortages have been reported and commented on for several years now, and no solution to the problem has yet been found.