Anticancer drugs, antibiotics, vaccines: the French suffer from a serious shortage of drugs

In a new report, the National Academy of Pharmacy notes and deplores a deterioration in the availability of drugs, in particular anticancer drugs, antibiotics and vaccines, covering essential therapeutic areas. 530 drug stock-outs were reported in France in 2017, an increase of 30% compared to 2016.

Even more serious, it is not a question here of new products whose unavailability is most often associated with economic problems of access to the market during the first years of their marketing, but of old products whose therapeutic use is well established and considered to have a major contribution.

For anticancer drugs, this is for example the case with 5FU or vincristine. For antibiotics, it is, among others, amoxicillin. “Among the anti-infectives, the particular class of vaccines has also been the subject of stock shortages and / or supply tensions since 2015”, adds the ANSM.

“The causes of these supply disruptions are multiple”

“The causes of these supply disruptions are multiple and this requires that many actors coordinate to resolve this situation, at the risk, if nothing is done voluntarily, of seeing this situation deteriorate even further in the coming years. . The United States, confronted with the same problem, has already reacted and put in place solutions which seem to bear fruit.It is urgent that France, and more generally the European Union, take the necessary measures for it. many patients who experience these situations with difficulty “, explains the national academy of pharmacy.

To deal with the situation, the Senate has just created an information mission. Its goal: to establish an inventory of stockouts and risks of stockouts for drugs and vaccines. Elected officials will also have to propose measures to remedy this situation, which they consider unacceptable. The first hearings were held on July 5 and 6.