Shortages of painkillers, antibiotics that are running out, pharmacies that are starting to manufacture them: tensions over drugs could last and in fact concern many treatments.
Focus on a global phenomenon.
What drugs are affected?
Amoxicillin, an antibiotic widely prescribed in children, is affected by shortages to the point that the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) recently authorized certain pharmacies to manufacture it, while laboratories are increasing their production.
Paracetamol is also in tension, especially in its pediatric form.
But if these two drugs have made the headlines, all classes of drugs are affected by stock shortages or supply tensions, according to the ANSM, including, for example, corticosteroids.
Three types of drugs known as “of major therapeutic interest” are more particularly exposed: anti-infectives, drugs for the nervous system (antiparkinsonians, antiepileptics) and those for the cardiovascular system.
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Is the phenomenon recent?
Shortage issues have become particularly visible with the pandemic, with certain essential molecules, such as muscle relaxants, running out of hospitals.
However, the phenomenon has been going on for years, the result of decades of globalization, which have concentrated the production of active ingredients in a few Asian countries, China and India in the lead.
However, the problem is getting worse.
In 2021, the ANSM received 2,160 reports of stockouts and risk of stockouts, compared to 405 in 2016, 1,504 in 2019 (and nearly 2,500 in 2020, at the heart of the pandemic).
Yann Mazens, who follows the subject within the France Assos Santé user network, cites in particular the case of intravesical BCG, used in bladder tumors.
"This is a drug that experienced a shortage in 2016/2017, and these tensions are back," he laments: "Behind the scenes of this subject, there are lost chances for patients", he explains, citing bladder ablations carried out "in the absence of available drugs".
Is this a general problem?
Tensions are far from being confined to France.
United States, Canada, Australia have also sounded the alarm over amoxicillin shortages.
Germany is experiencing shortages of a range of drugs, including fever syrups and painkillers.
The British Department of Health also acknowledged in mid-December a shortage of certain antibiotics used to treat strep A infections.
Even countries that are major producers of active ingredients are concerned.
China thus requisitioned the production of certain pharmaceutical companies at the end of December, at a time when millions of Chinese are struggling to obtain basic drugs to treat themselves in the face of an unprecedented wave of Covid-19.
Specialists in the sector point to the economic model, which means that the large laboratories have gradually withdrawn from old molecules, which are less economically profitable than new products.
In June 2020, a senatorial report on the subject was published in France: it thus indicated that stock-outs did not concern new, more expensive drugs.
our medication file
What are the solutions ?
The French health authorities have implemented several measures depending on the drugs in tension.
This notably involves identifying specialties that can replace the defaulting pharmaceutical specialty, or prohibiting the export of certain specialties by distributors.
Since 2022, French pharmaceutical companies will incur heavier penalties than before if they have not taken sufficient measures against the shortage of certain treatments.
It must be said that the number of sanctions is rare: none in 2021, three sanctions in 2022, recalls France Assos Santé.
More broadly, specialists in the sector plead for the relocation to Europe of certain molecules… provided that an economic model that works is found.
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