Faced with shortages of medicines, including widely prescribed antibiotics, the government announced Friday that it would authorize price increases for certain essential generics to encourage manufacturers to continue production.
While France has for months suffered from a shortage of medicines, including the pediatric form of the antibiotic amoxicillin, the Health and Industry Ministries will operate price increases “in exchange for manufacturers’ commitments to ensure supply for the French market.” he indicated in a joint press release on Friday.
An industry demand
The ministries have also announced a moratorium on the price reduction of generics considered strategic from the industrial and health point of view.
These measures have been demanded for several weeks by manufacturers of generic medicines, a wind against the social security budget, who consider that prices in France are too low to allow them to continue selling in France, or even to maintain their production.
Last week, the manufacturers, but also the main unions of pharmacists, boycotted the discussions in the Ministry of Health, related precisely to further price reductions.
By the end of May, a list of strategic drugs will be established, the government also said. The National Agency for the Safety of Medicines will also be responsible for establishing a preparation plan for winter epidemics (ensuring stocks, improving data availability).
Finally, within three months a “white anti-drug plan” will be drawn up that can be activated in the event of an exceptional situation.
A return to normality “within two weeks”
The Minister of Health, François Braun, promised this Friday the “return to normality in two weeks” in Europe 1.
“We will return in the next two weeks to a month of additional stock of amoxicillin,” he said, confirming the next delivery to pharmacies of one million vials of this antibiotic.
“We have recovered our paracetamol stocks, so we are out of this crisis period in the next two weeks,” added the minister.
These future deliveries are explained, according to him, by “the work of the manufacturers, who activated the entire production chain.”
“Pharmacists will receive an additional 750,000 boxes of amoxicillin delivered by Biogaran starting February 6,” the generics lab said. “In total for the month of February we are going to distribute 1,090,000 boxes in three references,” he added.
Source: BFM TV
