the sector asked to ensure better distribution to combat shortages

The Minister of Health met with the professionals concerned. He asked them to draw up a charter of good practices, in order to ensure that all pharmacies can have these products.

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The drawer provided for antibiotics in a pharmacy in Briançon (Hautes-Alpes), October 20, 2023. (THIBAUT DURAND / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP)

Aurélien Rousseau calls on stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry to show greater solidarity to better distribute the distribution of antibiotics. The goal is to ensure that these products, like amoxicillin, are accessible to patients this winter. For two hours, Friday November 10,he Minister of Health brought together production laboratories, wholesalers-distributors and pharmacists’ unions.

He asked all links in the chain to develop “within ten days” a charter of good practices based on a logic of transparency. This particularly concerns antibiotics, which can be poorly distributed across the territory. Last month, Aurélien Rousseau declared that stocks, particularly of amoxicillin, were sufficient for the winter. But he recognized distribution problems with, “in particular, the largest pharmacies which have overstocked”.

Six out of ten pharmacies have little or no amoxicillin

This charter will be drawn up “under the aegis of the President of the National Council of the Order of Pharmacists and the Director General of the National Medicines Safety Agency”, according to the minister’s entourage. Players in the dev sectorwill agree “on the information tools they share to prevent breakups” And “so that there is no wild constitution of precautionary stocks”which disrupts the supply chain.

Ahead of the meeting, the president of the federation of pharmaceutical unions in France, Philippe Besset, indicated that “60% of pharmacies have no or almost no amoxicillin, 20% have seven days of stock, which is considered a reasonable stock, and 20% of pharmacies have more than a month of stock, which is which was our way of working before periods of shortage”, which have accelerated in recent years.

At the end of October, the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) noted “stocks that were available on the national territory” but also a “difficulty in ensuring that there is a distribution over the territory that is completely homogeneous”. To avoid reliving the shortage periods of last winter, several actions have been implemented in recent months. The Ministers of Health and Industry will present “early December” a global roadmap for the fight.


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