Paris (AFP)
The Paris court delivers its judgment on Monday in the Mediator health scandal trial.
In the forefront of the defendants: Servier laboratories, the former number 2 of the firm and the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM).
In total, eleven legal persons and twelve natural persons are judged.
- Servier laboratories -
The second French pharmaceutical group is accused of having knowingly concealed the anorectic (or appetite suppressant) properties of Mediator, as soon as it was put on the market in 1976, and of having concealed its dangerousness, while the first alerts surfaced in the 1990s.
Prescribed to around 5 million people during the thirty-three years of its marketing, this drug was not withdrawn from the market until November 2009. At the hearing, the company tirelessly repeated that there was no no "identified risk signal" before 2009.
The prosecution requested more than 10 million euros in fines against six companies of the Servier group prosecuted for "aggravated deception", "swindle" to the detriment of Social Security and mutual insurance companies and "involuntary homicides and injuries".
The pharmaceutical firm "has deliberately made the cynical choice not to take into account the risks that it could not ignore", said the prosecution.
- The ex-number 2 of Servier -
Jean-Philippe Seta was the right hand of Jacques Servier, the all-powerful boss of the laboratories.
The latter's death in 2014 put Mr. Seta in the forefront.
He is the only natural person to appear for "manslaughter and unintentional injury".
He is also judged for "fraud", "deception", "improper obtaining of authorization" of placing on the market.
He is also the only defendant against whom he has been required to stay in prison, five years of which three are closed and a fine of 200,000 euros.
His lawyer asked for the release, saying he did not know the dangerousness of the drug.
- Health authorities -
The National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) is judged for "homicides and involuntary injuries" by negligence for having delayed in suspending the marketing of Mediator, despite repeated alerts on its dangerousness.
The prosecution requested a fine of 200,000 euros against the Agency which, he said, "seriously failed in its mission of health police" by not giving itself "the means to pierce the vagueness and the fog maintained during years by Servier laboratories ".
The ANSM did not plead the release.
From 1999, she "had the elements which should have enabled her to understand", pleaded her lawyer Nathalie Schmelck.
"She didn't do it. In that she's guilty. She admits it."
- Conflicts of interest and influence peddling -
In this section which concerns facts of "illegal taking of interests" and "revolving door", nine people appeared, as well as four companies of the Servier group for "complicity" or "concealment".
Some experts sat on committees ruling on the Mediator while being paid as consultants by Servier, other defendants had become employees of the laboratories shortly after leaving their functions within the health authorities.
The prosecution notably requested a two-year suspended prison sentence and a 30,000 euros fine against Jean-Michel Alexandre, a former major in pharmacology and senior executive of the Medicines Agency, who became "personal advisor "by Jacques Servier.
Against the four companies of the Servier group, the prosecutor requested fines ranging from 375,000 to 1.875 million euros, for a total of nearly 5 million euros.
Finally, a former UMP senator is being prosecuted for "influence peddling".
Marie-Thérèse Hermange is accused of having modified a report to minimize the responsibility of the Servier laboratories.
The prosecution required three years in prison and a 75,000 euros fine against Ms. Hermange, a former adviser to Servier and former director general of Inserm, Claude Griscelli, and the former number 2 of the Jean-group. Philippe Seta.
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