It has already been six months since the situation became tense again, especially for the children. To the point that the National Agency for Drug Safety (ANSM) had to ask pharmacists this fall to ration the sale of this famous pain reliever to each patient. In mid-December, the Ministry of Health indicated that the supply tensions affecting pediatric forms of paracetamol and certain antibiotics should persist for at least a few more weeks, until the measures adopted by the health authorities bear fruit.
For paracetamol, the situation was still “complex” and would take “a little time to normalize in pediatric forms,” the Ministry of Health said during a press conference. In the other forms for adults, “the situation has become more comfortable,” he said. But the situation remains tense, so much so that on Wednesday the government decided to ban the online sale of paracetamol-based products.
A European Shortage
With BFMTV, the president of the Health Risk Monitoring and Forecasting Committee (Covars) judges that there is indeed a “paracetamol problem in France”. The problem is even more global, with supply difficulties “all over Europe”, continues Brigitte Autran.
Government spokesman Olivier Véran said this Wednesday, at the end of the Council of Ministers, “a paracetamol production problem that has not been adjusted by manufacturers around the world to future needs.” Stronger flu, bronchiolitis epidemic, “the global consumption of paracetamol has tightened”, Olivier Véran continued.
The explosion of Covid-19 contaminations in China is also weighing on demand. Many drugs, including acetaminophen, are made in Chinese factories and some of them have stopped exports and reserved their drugs for Chinese patients. In this context, the extent of the epidemic in China depends on the limit of the world’s available drug reserves. Result: in France, some pharmacies have run out of paracetamol and antibiotics.
However, without this active ingredient produced in Asia, the production chain cannot function, even based in Europe.
When is a Doliprane box made in France?
Therefore, the only solution is to produce the Doliprane molecule on European soil. This industrial independence is a campaign promise of Emmanuel Macron, in 2022.
Hopes were pinned on Sequens, the world champion in pharmaceutical solutions. This year a paracetamol production unit will be inaugurated in Isère. An opening finally postponed until the end of 2025. However, this relocation is long overdue, however, the company has committed 100 million euros to this Roussillon site, planned to produce 10,000 tons of this chemical active ingredient per year.
A delay that the Minister of Economy himself regrets. This Wednesday at France Inter, Bruno Le Maire points out: “currently it takes more than two years” for a drug relocation project to see the light of day. An “unacceptable” delay, judges the Bercy tenant. To remedy this, he plans to present a bill on green industry in the coming weeks, to “be able to create new industrial estates in a few months.”
What a reminder of this commitment from the President of the Republic himself. In June 2020, at the end of the first lockdown, which had exposed our dependence on the Asian production of medicines and masks, Emmanuel Macron had affirmed his desire to return to producing paracetamol in France.
For now, there are only paracetamol bottling plants.
Why so late?
If we talk about a “relocation” of the active ingredient, it is because France produced, for a time, paracetamol. But the last industrial site to do so stopped operating in 2008.
How to explain that this production unit probably takes 5 years -and not 3 as expected- to get out of the ground? It’s mostly for regulatory issues, explains Matthieu Croissandeau, editorial writer for BFMTV. In fact, the manufacturing process must respect more precise and demanding environmental standards than in 2008.
Health authorities must also agree, again, a step that takes a long time. A long-term investment that could, however, pay off: 10,000 tons produced per year would cover the entire French demand for paracetamol, as well as a third of the European needs.
Source: BFM TV
