The 'to be discontinued' entries on FDA's shortage list

FDA's drug shortage database held 161 entries marked "to be discontinued" on Oct. 30, 2026, more than twice the 69 drugs listed as currently in shortage. All but one had been posted in the previous 12 months, according to GxRadar's analysis of the openFDA drug shortages data¹.

That timing is by design. FDA's shortage FAQ² says discontinued products stay on the page for one year, against six months for resolved shortages. The lone older entry is a prazosin capsule posted April 28, 2023, whose note says supply was expected to run out that September.

A patient who searches for a familiar drug and finds it marked "to be discontinued" could reasonably assume it is about to disappear. Usually it is not. The entries reflect manufacturers' notices about their own products, and many list only one or two presentations. By FDA's own count, a discontinuation by itself has rarely been what starts a national shortage. The list sits beside current shortages on our shortage tracker.

What a discontinuation notice is

Section 506C of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, codified at 21 U.S.C. 356c³, covers prescription drugs that are life-supporting, life-sustaining or used to prevent or treat a debilitating condition, "including any such drug used in emergency medical care or during surgery." Makers of those drugs must tell FDA of a permanent discontinuance at least six months ahead or, if that is not possible, "as soon as practicable." FDA's FAQ adds an outer limit of five business days after production stops. A 2015 final rule⁷ wrote the requirement into FDA's regulations and extended it to many biological products.

FDA reads "drug" narrowly. Its draft guidance on 506C notices⁵, issued in February 2024, defines a finished product as "a specific strength, dosage form, and route of administration," and a permanent discontinuance as a manufacturer's decision "to cease manufacturing and distributing its product indefinitely for business or other reasons." When judging whether an interruption will disrupt supply, the guidance text⁶ says a manufacturer "should not consider other manufacturers' or competitors' capacities." A company that drops one strength of a drug with a dozen other suppliers still owes FDA a notice.

Those notices feed the public list. Under the same section³, FDA is to distribute discontinuance information "to the maximum extent practicable." Its FAQ says the discontinuations on the database "reflect information received from manufacturers and are for informational purposes only." Firms that skip the notice get a public letter; FDA has sent 11 since 2014, according to its 2025 report to Congress⁸, and posts them on a non-compliance page⁹.

What the 161 entries contain

Injections lead, but less heavily than on the shortage side, and tablets and capsules make up a much bigger share.

Source: GxRadar analysis of openFDA drug shortage records as of Oct. 30, 2026. Current-shortage shares leave out two IV powders and one irrigant, so they total 96 percent. Why injectables dominate the shortage side is covered in Why sterile injectables dominate shortage lists.

By FDA's therapeutic tags, the biggest groups were anti-infectives (30 entries), cardiovascular drugs (24), cancer drugs (16), endocrinology and metabolism (14), and analgesia, neurology and "other" with 12 each. Most entries are small. The median entry lists two presentations, and 72 list just one.

The free-text notes are mostly boilerplate. In 86 entries the note reads, word for word, "Discontinuation of the manufacture of the drug," and 31 mention a business decision. Five have no note. Eleven indicate a partial exit or a switch, such as a single vial size or strength, a private-label version, a new package or replacement product codes. Twenty-three give a date, such as three insulin products whose distribution is projected to end in June 2027.

Postings come in waves. Between November 2025 and October 2026 FDA added eight to 23 entries a month. Eight were posted on a single day, July 23, 2026, including five suppository products (aspirin, belladonna and opium, hydrocortisone acetate, hydromorphone and morphine).

Familiar names, many other makers

Several common generics with GxRadar drug pages appear on the list. None of them was listed as currently in shortage on Oct. 30. GxRadar's count of approved generic applications not in discontinued status, taken from Drugs@FDA¹⁰ through October 2026, helps explain why.

Source: GxRadar analysis of openFDA drug shortage and Drugs@FDA records. ANDA counts cover every dosage form of the ingredient, so they overstate the competition for any one form, and an approval does not prove a company is shipping. Approval trends are on our approvals page.

When a discontinuation turns into a shortage

Discontinuation is one of the seven shortage reasons Congress wrote into 21 U.S.C. 356e⁴, and it does happen. Six of the 69 current shortages cite it, including bacitracin eye ointment (listed since March 3, 2025 and marked unavailable), rifampin capsules and a quinapril and hydrochlorothiazide tablet. The FAQ says FDA "can't require a firm to keep making a drug it wants to discontinue," and that older drugs are sometimes dropped "in favor of newer, more profitable drugs."

As a starting cause, though, it is uncommon. FDA's 2019 root-cause report¹¹ found that of 163 drugs that went into shortage from 2013 to 2017, 3 percent did so because of product discontinuations, against 62 percent after manufacturing or quality problems. The same report found that just before a shortage there were on average three companies per drug holding approvals they were not using. A notice gives FDA time to ask whether other makers can cover the gap, which is the purpose of the six-month rule. The tools it uses, and their limits, are described in How FDA works to prevent drug shortages, How FDA tracks drug shortages and Why drug shortages happen.

Risk rises when few makers remain. Fourteen of the 30 anti-infective discontinuation entries are injectable antibacterials, among them vancomycin, ceftriaxone, cefepime and piperacillin with tazobactam, drugs of the kind covered in why antibiotics keep running short. Those are older sterile injectables, the kind FDA's FAQ says are made on "a limited number of production lines." The single-supplier problem is covered in Why some generics have only one maker.

For anyone whose prescription appears on the list, the useful questions for a pharmacist are whether the store's usual supplier is the one leaving and whether another maker's version of the same strength is in stock. More are in What to ask when your medicine is in shortage.

Several exits on the list are dated. One manufacturer's cisatracurium injection, a surgical muscle relaxant, was expected to run out in November 2026. Another's imipenem and cilastatin injection is due to end around Nov. 30, 2026, and one company's mesalamine extended-release capsules are expected to remain available until Dec. 31, 2027.