[asianthree]

Originally Posted by Altavia

Something similar happened in 2017 after Hurricane Maria’s impact on Puerto Rican drug manufacturing facilities.

FDA works to help relieve the IV fluid shortages in wake of Hurricane Maria | FDA

The market in general won't bear the added cost of geography redundant facilities. There is this risk across many industries.

Puerto Rico's Power Outages Have Led To Medicine Shortages On Mainland, Too : Shots - Health News : NPR

The 2017 IV shortage from Hurricane Maria was of the damage to the machines that produced plastic IV bags, that was basically the one of a few who manufactured the product. It definite wake up call for all medical facilities, to change dramatically. No longer hanging a bag of fluids on every pre-op patient, across the US. For awhile some elective surgeries put on hold.

Returning to the old ways of making your own pediatric IVs from a large ML bag. Yep, it was time-consuming, you always knew how much waste was thrown away every day, but that was the accepted way of practice.
Cost wise, it was cheaper by 50% or more by using larger bags, then tossing out 1/2 of the bag or more.