Posted
Video length: 4 mins.
According to Jérôme Martin, co-founder of the Transparency Medicines Observatory, between 2017 and today, reports for “drug shortages” have increased sixfold. But then, what is it due to?
For Jérôme Martin, co-founder of the Transparency Medicines Observatory, there is a real current shortage of medicines in France. One might think that this lack is due to the Covid pandemic. However, it only reveals and amplifies drug shortages and is not a structural cause. The origin of this phenomenon is rather to be sought in the “massive relocation of production, in particular of the raw material, but also in the almost total registration of drugs in logics of supply and demand and profit”, he explains.
“All therapeutic classes are affected”
For profit reasons, the production of medicines has been delocalized, leading us to a situation where “80% of the raw materials for the drugs we consume are produced in China or India”. “At the time of Covid and barrier measures, producers of antibiotics such as amoxicillin are seeing global demand drop, since barrier gestures are also effective against the circulation of bacteria.
And so, rather than investing in production lines where they are not going to sell in the short term, they decide to slow down, or even stop, the production of an antibiotic like amoxicillin. The problem is when we lift the barrier gestures and confinement: production does not restart quickly enough.”, says Jérôme Martin.
Currently, all therapeutic classes are affected, but some are more so than others. This is the case of pediatric drugs because they are more complex to manufacture, but also of abortion pills, calling into question medical abortion in certain places. Cancer treatments are also affected, a problematic situation because they have a “ very clear impact on the chances of recovery and survival of the sick.”, says Jérôme Martin. “There is a real, deep and serious dysfunction in the supply of our health systems.”