AMA Morning Rounds: Some patients feel betrayed by Genzyme over drug shortage.

On the front page of its Business Day section, the New York Times (4/16, B1, Pollack) reports that thousands of people "have been hard hit by a shortage of drugs made by the biotechnology company Genzyme to treat two rare inherited" conditions, Fabry disease and Pompe disease. As a result, "the close relationship -- unusual in the pharmaceutical industry -- that Genzyme had carefully built with the several thousand users of its high-price medicines" has "frayed." In fact, "some of those patients now say they feel betrayed by the company they once viewed as their savior." The company, "which initially predicted that the drug shortages would last six to eight weeks, has repeatedly backtracked on when supplies would be fully restored, as it has run into further manufacturing problems."