Health Minister Agnès Buzyn presented the main lines of her plan to combat drug shortages.
In 2017, 538 reports of stock-outs or drug supply tensions were counted in France by the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM).
This year, more than 1,200 treatments or vaccines will be affected by shortages, as was the case recently for cortisone, according to ANSM projections. “It’s 60% more than in 2018 and 30 times more than in 2008”, is alarmed the association France Assos Santéwhile the Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn presented “her roadmap” 2019-2022 this Monday morning to fight against stock shortages.
Two main axes
Presented at the Paris headquarters of the Order of Pharmacists, it includes a series of “main orientations” which should result in a final plan in September, thewhich would be based on two main axes: “promote the transparency and quality of information” and set up “actions targeted and adapted to each of the players in the drug circuit”, such as the possibility for pharmacists to “replace the unavailable medicine initially prescribed by another medicine”, when the shortage concerns a “medicine of major therapeutic interest”.
Similarly, the Minister of Health would like better “European cooperation”, by continuing “discussions on the joint purchase of essential vaccines in particular at European level” and “sharing of information concerning the situations and causes of shortages in the scale of Europe”. For this, it provides for the creation of a steering committee involving the Medicines Agency (ANSM) and “all the actors concerned”.
“We need to review the whole chain”
“It is not acceptable that people with cancer, Parkinson’s or chronic epilepsy cannot find the treatments that have been prescribed to them in pharmacies”, recalls Gérard Raymond, president of France Assos Santé. “We must review the entire chain, clearly identify the causes and make all the actors face up to their responsibilities. Medicines are not consumer products like any other, their production and distribution cannot respond to the sole logic financial profitability”.
The association intends to find its place within the famous steering committee and request:
– Total transparency on the causes and on the shortage management plans (PGP) put in place by manufacturers. These PGPs, although imposed by the public authorities on manufacturers, are in fact never made public,
– That the obligation of continuous and appropriate supply of the French market imposed on manufacturers be accompanied by financial sanctions. As surprising as it may seem, no financial penalty is currently provided for by law in the event of a breach of this obligation,
– That users and their representatives are informed and involved at each stage of the process of anticipating, identifying and controlling these situations of shortages,
– That proven dysfunctions be sanctioned, in particular financially, to the extent of the damage suffered by the patients. And this, whether wholesalers distributors or manufacturers.
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