Finnish team develops a medicine factory inside a shipping container

Finland is developing a portable, miniature pharmaceutical factory that could produce medicines where they are needed, including during crises, Yle reports. The project, led by the University of Helsinki, aims to fit the factory inside a shipping container; no comparable solution has been implemented elsewhere.

The container could be taken to a hospital or a crisis zone and used to start production quickly, says Mia Sivén, an associate professor of sustainable pharmacy at the University of Helsinki and head of the Farmakontti project.

The project is intended to help address medicine shortages, which have become common, and strengthen Finland’s preparedness by ensuring that critical medicines can be produced despite changing circumstances. The first step is to build a pilot container, with the model potentially replicated later.

The University of Helsinki has received initial funding from Business Finland to advance the idea. It is now assembling a network of companies and public-sector organisations to work on the project.

Finland relies heavily on imported medicines and has limited domestic industrial production. Long international supply and production chains are vulnerable to disruption, Sivén says, and there is a risk that Finland could be left without a medicine during a shortage. Finland is also a small market, and its wholesale medicine prices are among the lowest in Europe, making it less attractive to pharmaceutical companies.

The Finnish Medicines Agency, known as Fimea, currently lists supply disruption notices for more than 700 medicinal products. Some notices concern different package sizes of the same product. Recent shortages have affected several estradiol products used to treat menopausal symptoms, acne medicines containing isotretinoin, long-acting insulin, extended-release quetiapine used as a psychiatric medicine, and certain cancer medicines. Fimea says disruptions in these groups have lasted a long time or recurred, or alternatives have been limited.

Some carvedilol medicines used for cardiovascular conditions have also faced prolonged supply disruptions, although Fimea says treatment has been maintained using other products.

Medicine shortages can result from problems at different points in production and delivery. Disruptions may occur when manufacturers cannot produce enough active ingredients, excipients or finished medicines to meet demand, and problems in one stage can affect later stages.