As of January 1, 2020, the “reimbursement of an insured who would not wish, without medical justification, the substitution proposed by the pharmacist will be made on the basis of the price of the generic”. Knowing that a General medicine is on average 40% cheaper than its original version, this should encourage more patients to opt for generics.
If generic drugs are gradually gaining ground, this is not yet enough for the government, which wants greater use of substitutable generics on the part of practitioners and patients. Investigation of the UFC Que Choose has shown that 73% of drugs are still prescribed under their brand name and not under their international non-proprietary name (INN), i.e. under the name of their molecule. However, it is this INN which allows the dispensing of generics by the pharmacist.
From now on, the prescription of brand-name drugs will have to be based on “on objective medical criteria, defined in conjunction with the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM)”. An allergy to one of the adjuvants for example.
This measure should allow in the short term “less than 100 million euros” savings, according to the Ministry of the Economy.
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