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The paracetamol production chain will be relocated to France within three years. This is in any case what the government announced on Thursday, the day after Emmanuel Macron's speech visiting a Sanofi factory near Lyon. Realism of this promise and impact for consumers of this analgesic, very popular at the height of the coronavirus crisis to combat pain and fever: Europe 1 takes stock.
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A molecule produced in China and India and transported by boat
First clarification: it is in fact the manufacture of the active principle of paracetamol that the government wants to relocate to France. Because the manufacture of the drug is still present on French soil, in the factories of Compiègne and Lisieux, for example, where Sanofi produces Doliprane. But the molecule, it arrives from far away, by boat, in the form of powder, produced in huge chemical factories in China and India.
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How to explain this relocation? The last factory producing paracetamol in France closed in 2008 for two reasons: the desire to keep polluting products away, but also to bring about a reduction in prices.
Pharmacists soon to be more expensive?
A reversal of strategy, therefore: in the next three years, France will have to be able to produce on its soil, to package and distribute the active principle of paracetamol. The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, and his colleague from the Economy, Agnès Panier-Runacher, indicated that discussions had been initiated in this direction with three French laboratories, Seqens, Upsa and Sanofi.
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On the technical side, it is quite feasible, according to specialists interviewed by Europe 1 - except that it will be necessary to settle the question of environmental impact. But it is above all the economic equation that will have to be redefined: producing paracetamol in France or in Europe will cost more than importing it from China or India. You will therefore have to agree to pay a few tens of cents more for your box of capsules or syrup at the pharmacist.