Drug shortages have increased at an alarming rate over the past five years in France, from about 800 in 2018 to about 3,000 today, the chairwoman of the Senate Inquiry Committee on Drug Shortages, Sonia de La Provôté, said on Wednesday.

The situation is mainly due to problems sourcing molecules to manufacture the drugs, most of which come from China and India (80-85%).

“In France in 2018, between 700 and 800 drugs were under supply tension, compared with 2,500 to 3,000 today,” de La Provôté said on Wednesday.

“COVID has highlighted the complexity and concentration of supply chains”, the industry minister during the COVID-19 pandemic and now Ecological Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher told the Senate Committee during Wednesday’s hearing.

To combat the drug shortage problem, Pannier-Runacher proposes to guarantee access to treatments through the public health system, secure supply through industry and encourage innovation through regulation.

But “even before reindustrialisation, we need to reintegrate skills, from technicians to engineers and managers, so that we can once again be self-sufficient in chemical production”, said de La Provôté.

Medicine shortages also affect other European countries, like Italy, which reported supply constraints for over 3,000 drugs this winter, of which 554 were completely out of stock.

However, the French case is peculiar, as France was the EU’s leading medicines producer until 2008 but now ranks fourth after Switzerland, Germany and Italy, according to Elysée figures.

In the coming weeks, the Senate committee on drug shortages will hear from Health Minister François Braun to “evaluate his action in the fight against drug shortages” before delivering its report in July.

(Clara Bauer-Babef | EURACTIV.fr)

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