INTERVIEW
In pharmacies, more and more drugs are missing, causing concern among professionals in the sector. While Health Minister Agnès Buzyn unveiled in July an action plan to fight against stockouts of medicines, more than 1,200 treatments or vaccines will be affected by shortages throughout 2019. , 25 times more than in 2008, according to the projections of the Agence du médicament. Invited Tuesday of Europe 1, Thomas Borel, director of scientific affairs of the companies of the drug, recognizes that "things have been aggravated for several months". "It is undeniable that things have worsened for several months," he says, before adding: "This is not a Franco-French topic, it is found in other European countries."
"The market has relocated significantly"
According to Thomas Borel, the products most concerned by the shortages are "antibiotics, vaccines, anti-cancer, or treatments of the nervous system such as anti-parkinsonians". But, he adds, "it can affect all drugs", because one of the causes of shortage is "sometimes related to the problem of quality of these products". But, he says, "we are in an extremely secure industry, standardized, and any problem occurring on the production line can cause the product to stop production."
REPORTAGE - Shortage of medicines: a difficult daily life for pharmacists and patients
In addition to production shutdowns due to problems in the production chain, the shortages are mainly caused by "a problem of differential between the ever-increasing world demand and the production capacity", explains Thomas Borel, who evokes the example of some countries like China, "who decide to have health policies much more voluntarist". Thus, a policy of vaccinating 100 million children against measles by the Chinese government can result in a significant strain on the production of a vaccine.
"The market has relocated strongly to areas such as China and India," notes the scientific director of the companies of the drug. Today, 80% of active ingredients are manufactured outside Europe against 20% 30 years ago. This is why Thomas Borel calls for "a strong industrial public policy to ensure the maintenance of the production of the active principle or the finished product, if not in France, at least in Europe".
"No miracle solution"
Unfortunately, he says, "there is no quick fix". "We must ensure that there is a production that is maintained in Europe," says Thomas Borel, and have "a voluntarist pricing policy" to ensure that drugs, when in tension, "can be sufficiently made available to the French market and to avoid the deleterious phenomenon of parallel export".
On the other hand, it does not support the introduction of new sanctions against laboratories that do not ensure a continuous supply. The laboratories, he says, "are already subject to enormous regulations".