Paris (AFP)

The Servier laboratory, which sold for 33 years the Mediator, a drug held responsible for hundreds of deaths, conceded Thursday at the trial of the health scandal had "a poor appreciation of risk" and made "an error analysis ".

"The laboratory did not perceive the level of risk as it should have," said Emmanuel Canet, the firm's representative at the trial. The lab is appearing for deception, homicide and unintentional injuries.

The Mediator, which was presented as an anti-diabetic, has been widely sold as an appetite suppressant. It was withdrawn from the market in November 2009 when warnings had appeared since the 90s.

Emmanuel Canet speaks repeatedly of "error of analysis". He also recognizes "a bad appreciation of risk". "The measures that should have been taken were not done in time," he told the court.

He speaks of the "responsibility" of the laboratory but systematically charges the Agency of the drug, which also counts among the defendants for his passivity until 2009. "The analysis we do it in a joint way with the Agency. not the only ones, "he says.

Emmanuel Canet denies that the laboratory had "the will to deceive or conceal" in order to keep the drug on the market. "We did not realize that we were in a situation similar to that of fenfluramines," he says, far from convincing the civil parties.

In 1997, Servier withdrew from the sale two drugs appetite suppressants, Isomeride and Ponderal, family of fenfluramines, after the identification of numerous cases of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a rare and serious disease. They contained norfenfluramine, a toxic substance also found in the Mediator.

"Have patients and doctors been adequately informed about the side effects of the Mediator?" Questions President Sylvie Daunis. "The information was not commensurate with the risk," admits Emmanuel Canet. But "what appears to be obvious today was not obvious at the time," he defends himself.

"Wrongly, we have not done studies case witnesses," says the representative of Servier. The known cases of PAH and valvulopathy were too few, according to him.

It was not until 2009 and the pulmonologist Irène Frachon that the scandal broke. As a first step, the laboratory requested a prescription restriction instead of a withdrawal of the drug.

But at the trial, ten years later, Emmanuel Canet repeats: the decision to withdraw was "the right one.

© 2019 AFP