IMPORTANT UPDATE – JUNE 3, 2019
Bladder Cancer Canada and its Medical Advisory Board were advised by Merck Canada back in November 2018 that they would be experiencing limited supply of Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) in the coming year.
As the only supplier of BCG in Canada Merck established an allocation plan last fall and committed to keeping information updated at: https://www.drugshortagescanada.ca/drug/4066
During that time Merck expected to fulfill between 75% and 100% of the normal demand with an anticipated end date of October 2019.
Merck Canada has recently advised that there will be a complete supply outage of BCG between mid- to late-June and the end of July 2019 due to a manufacturing delay. Given this news, Bladder Cancer Canada has updated the correspondence that was distributed to the medical community back on November 8, 2018.
Below is an approach for consideration for physicians to address the shortage/outage of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG):
Download the document here: Approach to Address BCG Shortage updated June 2019
The Medical Advisory Board of Bladder Cancer Canada and the CUA Guidelines Committee have reviewed and support these suggestions.
Bladder Cancer Canada is awaiting final discussions between Health Canada and a second supplier with regards to accessing the BCG Russian strain for use in Canada. Bladder Cancer Canada is continuing to work closely with Health Canada and do everything possible to expedite the approval of a second BCG supplier in Canada and minimize the effect of the shortage on bladder cancer patients.
Read the Bladder Cancer Canada Position Statement on the BCG Shortage
Bladder Cancer Canada will continue to update you as we receive more information.
