Elisabeth Borne announced this Thursday the installation of an inter-ministerial mission in charge of formulating the first paths “within three months” on the “regulation” and “financing of health products”, in a context of growing shortage of medicines.
The President of the Government hopes, in a press release, “that a shared diagnosis can be made on our current care model and on its ways of improving, guaranteeing the strengthening of our industrial competitiveness and a better fight against supply tensions and the shortages”.
In “close” contact with the government, industry players and patient representatives, this mission “will question the relevance of our current tools to regulate and finance health products.”
six personalities
It will make its recommendations to the prime minister “by the summer of 2023, with the first leads expected within three months,” the press release specifies.
For several months, tensions have weighed on the supply of medicines. Two products, widely used by the French, concentrate the concerns: the pediatric versions of paracetamol and amoxicillin, the most prescribed antibiotic in the country, mainly to treat angina and childhood otitis.
Six personalities will be in charge of this mission: Agnès Audier, mining engineer, ambassador of France 2030; Claire Biot, Vice President of the Health Industry at Dassault Systèmes and Independent Director of Mauna Kea Technologies; Frédéric Collet, Ambassador of France 2030; Anne-Aurélie Epis de Fleurian, Associate Director of Market Access at Iqvia; Magali Léo, head of defense for a patients’ association, and Mathilde Lignot-Leloup, master counselor at the Court of Auditors.
Boycott
Several objectives are assigned to them: “patient access to health products, the fight against shortages, the sustainability of health spending, the strengthening of our productive fabric (…) with the aim of health sovereignty, the attraction of territories for manufacturers and the relocation of strategic health products, balance and equity in the distribution of efforts”.
The manufacturers of generic medicines and the main unions of pharmacists announced this Wednesday their decision to boycott the discussions scheduled for Thursday at the Ministry of Health, in response to requests for price reductions for certain molecules.
The conference of presidents of the Senate for its part acted on Wednesday the creation of an investigation commission on the shortage of medicines, at the request of the CRCE group with a communist majority.
Source: BFM TV
