Medicines: sales stagnation in France

The pharmaceutical sector union is very worried. In a press release published on Tuesday, the Pharmaceutical Companies (LEEM) report that in 2015, France was the only country in Europe not to have posted growth in its turnover.

Our neighbors are doing better. This is the case for the German (+ 6% revenue growth in 2015), Spanish (+ 16%), Italian (+ 13%) and English (+ 10%) markets.
Conversely, the French market stagnated (27.8 billion euros in France) in 2015, “confirming a trend that has lasted for four years”, deplores the Leem.

As a result, on a global scale, France’s pharmaceutical market share is decreasing significantly: it represented 5.4% in 2005, 3.9% in 2014 and peaked at 3.5% in 2015.

Ever heavier regulation

And the pharmaceutical industry holds the blame. “The successive savings plans put in place in recent years by the public authorities are suffocating the sector which alone assumes 50% of the savings efforts of the Health Insurance”, she writes. The union recalls in passing that it only represents 15% of health spending. In 2016, the contribution of drug companies amounted to an unprecedented level: 1.66 billion euros in savings, including 900 million in price reductions.

But the list of woes does not end there. “To this annual contribution (…) is added a specific taxation for the pharmaceutical industry”, she underlines. Leem writes that between 2011 and 2015, the share of levies on taxable turnover thus fell from 3.6% to 6.3% while the growth rate of taxable turnover fell. from + 0.3% to – 0.6%. “The increase in taxation, combined with the recession of the sector, leads to an erosion of the profitability of the sector”, she concludes.

The price of drugs denounced

Finally, the last horse in the Leem battle, the price of French medicines “among the lowest in Western Europe”. He also cites a study by the Economic Committee for Health Products (CEPS) revealing that for 93% of products under patent and with particularly high turnover, French prices are lower than the average of those in Germany and the United Kingdom. United, Spain and Italy.

Figures are still to be put into perspective. With 7.7 billion euros in surplus in 2015, the drug industry is one of the few sectors to maintain a positive trade balance. And drug trade between France and other countries is up + 1.5% compared to 2014.
Thus, including exports, 2015 sales of the French pharmaceutical sector reached 53.2 billion euros, up slightly by 0.6% over one year. But there again the Leem nuance. “It comes after a strong recession in 2014 (- 5.0%), confirmed by the first figures for 2016 (- 19% in April 2016)”, he concludes.