Pharmaceutical groups and pharmacists promised on Wednesday to agree so that medicines are better distributed throughout France, in order to prevent patients from having to deal with the unavailability of their treatment (AFP/Archives/Christophe ARCHAMBAULT)
Pharmaceutical groups and pharmacists promised on Wednesday to agree so that medicines are better distributed throughout France, in order to prevent patients from encountering the unavailability of their treatment.
The objective is to “guarantee that each patient can have access anywhere in the national territory to the medicines they need”, explained Christelle Ratignier-Carbonneil, director general of the National Security Agency, at a press conference. Medicines (ANSM) which oversaw the drafting of this charter alongside the Order of Pharmacists.
This document, which has no binding value and therefore does not provide for any sanctions, brings together the main organizations of pharmacists and the pharmaceutical industry, as well as wholesalers-distributors.
The Ministry of Health asked them at the beginning of November to make several commitments in order to combat shortages of certain drugs, a long-term problem but which had become particularly accentuated last winter.
A very common antibiotic, amoxicillin, had become emblematic of these shortages, proving very difficult to find for many weeks, particularly in its version for children.
Currently, the ministry admits that patients cannot find their medicine in pharmacies, but assures that this is a problem of distribution on French territory and not of overall insufficient stocks.
The charter signed on Wednesday makes the “gamble of restoring regulation, confidence, efficiency” in the drug distribution system “so that in the coming days, in the coming weeks, the stocks present are better distributed between all 20,500 pharmacies in this country,” declared Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau during a press briefing.
“This commitment is made over the long term” and “concrete results will be required”, he added, stressing that the ministry with the ANSM will be “there to verify that everything is happening as the charter provides”.
Among the main points of this agreement, the signatories promise to better share data on the availability of medicines, which would allow, for example, pharmacists to inform their customers more precisely on the date when their treatment will be available again.
On the industrial side, we promise in particular to favor sales to wholesalers-distributors. These organizations have the role of serving as intermediaries between pharmaceutical groups and pharmacists for better stock regulation but are, in fact, often bypassed by direct sales to pharmacies.
As for pharmacists, they promise not to order “unreasonable” stocks of a drug, in relation to the size of their clientele.
“On certain innovative medicines, we will experience supply tensions in the months and years to come,” however warned the minister, who will present a “road map” on shortages for the end of the year.
© 2023 AFP
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends using the buttons below.
