Since winter 2022, drug shortages have increased, such as Amoxicillin, the most prescribed antibiotic in France. To resolve the problem, the government announced on September 3 the increase in prices, in return for which the laboratories undertake to provide sufficient stocks of the drug.
Jérôme Wirotius, general director of Biogaran, a laboratory specializing in generic medicines, assures that everything will be done to avoid the shortage of medicines observed last year.
The government has announced a series of measures to avoid the stock shortages suffered last year. The manufacturers including you have obtained a 10% increase in the price of amoxicillin. Is this enough?
Jerome Wirotius : I think that France and the public authorities, following years of very intense discussions over the last three years, have understood, like the French, that there is a link between price, economic viability in the broad sense and availability, as well as sovereignty. That is to say that all of this is closely linked, this is the reason why, historically, we have always decided to manufacture in France. These measures, for us, are a first step which proves that the public authorities have understood this link between economic equation and availability.
10% increase means about 20 cents more for the box of medicine. So are you guaranteeing today that there will be enough medicines in pharmacies this winter?
By strongly mobilizing all of the Biogaran teams and our industrial partners, we managed to guarantee 12.8 million boxes of amoxicillin for this winter 2023-2024. These are truly exceptional years.
We have a portfolio of 900 different drugs, the average price of a generic in France is €3.91. According to a study carried out this year, which studies 20 European countries which have approximately the same structure as us, we are the 14th in terms of lowest prices. In Italy, they are 38% more expensive on average.
“We have been holding a certain number of drugs at arm’s length for three years. The economic equation is no longer there for 144 of our products”
Jerome Wirotiusat franceinfo
We think of patients first. 144 Biogaran drugs which are no longer profitable today, but we have decided to keep them until now, maintaining dialogue with the public authorities. We continue to manufacture them in France and in Europe to make them available to patients.
“We have very strongly and strongly alerted the public authorities that neither we nor the other generic laboratories will be able to go another year in a context of inflation and new taxes which are today confiscatory. “
Jerome Wirotiusat franceinfo
You mention the safeguard clause, tax on pharmaceutical laboratories. It is expected to reach 1.7 billion this year. Are you afraid that this tax will be increased again in the next Social Security finance bill?
We have an economic regulation mechanism which is different from innovative medicines. When we arrive on the market, the patent is over. The generic drug model is that as soon as a patent expires, the price of the generic is on average 60% cheaper than the price which preceded it. And that’s how savings are generated. And so, we say to ourselves that this tax aims to make the laboratories which have contributed to the highest health expenditure and the overrun of the health budget pay, that this amount is re-invoiced to them. However, our starting prices are already calculated in such a way that savings are made from the first drug dispensed to patients.