Some drugs may cost more. Faced with shortages, in particular of widely prescribed antibiotics such as the antibiotic amoxicillin, the government announced on Friday that it would authorize price increases for certain essential generics, in order to encourage manufacturers to continue their production. The Ministries of Health and Industry have also announced a moratorium on price reductions for generics considered strategic from an industrial and health perspective.
These measures had been demanded for several weeks by the manufacturers of generic drugs, headwind against the Social Security budget, who consider the prices too low in France to allow them to continue to sell in France, or even to maintain their production. Last week, manufacturers, but also the main pharmacists’ unions, had boycotted discussions at the Ministry of Health, relating precisely to further price reductions.
“Medication white plan”
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 plan for preparing for winter epidemics (securing stocks, improving the availability of data). Finally, within three months, a “white drug plan” that can be activated in the event of an exceptional situation will be prepared.
The Minister of Health, François Braun, promised Friday the “return to a normal situation within two weeks”, on European 1. “We will come back in the next two weeks to a month of additional stock of amoxicillin,” he said, confirming the upcoming delivery to pharmacies of one million vials of this antibiotic. “We have recovered stocks of paracetamol, so we are out of this period of crisis in the next two weeks,” added the minister.
These future deliveries are explained, according to him, by “the work done by the manufacturers, who have activated the entire production chain”. “Pharmacists will receive 750,000 additional boxes of amoxicillin delivered by Biogaran from February 6,” the generic laboratory told AFP. “In total for the month of February, we are going to distribute 1,090,000 boxes over three references,” he added.