2024-01-07 16:18:43
For Amoxicillin, France has remained at 3 or 4 euros when foreign countries buy it much more expensively.
In Baignes, Jean-Marc Glémot, also advisor to the national order of pharmacists, tries to take the shortages with patience. “But there should at least be more transparency, he adds. There, we never know if we will be delivered in 3 days, in 3 weeks or in 3 months.”
Labs favor countries that pay better
“There are more than 1,000 references of drugs limited by laboratories, there have never been so many, confirms Pauline Martin, director of the CERP agency in Soyaux, wholesaler and distributor of medicines in Charente, Dordogne, Gironde and Vienne. After a bit of a lull this summer, we’ve been downhill once more since September and it continues to get worse. When it’s not one molecule, it’s another. »
She sees several explanations for these repeated shortages. Post-covid on the one hand, with “an upsurge in pathologies and laboratories which, for some, had stopped production lines and have not reopened everything”. There is also a real problem of price, according to her. “In France, Social Security sets the cost of medicines and, for some, like Amoxicillin, we have stayed at 3 or 4 euros when foreign countries buy it much more expensively. Some laboratories quickly made their choice. ». She states: “ As long as there is no real action at the state level, particularly to readjust prices, I don’t see how things will improve.”
Sanofi suspended all its direct orders from December 5 to 31 because it might no longer supply. “This is the first time this has happened.”notes Amandine Tesson-Richez, worried. “Sanofi is in the process of selling its consumer health branch, which includes Doliprane, completes Pauline Martin. This should further disrupt supplies, at least for the duration of the transition.”
The watchword: adaptation
So, on the front line facing customers every day, pharmacists try to adapt. “We call each other, we help out as soon as we can, but it’s constant tinkering,” breathes Jean-Philippe Brégère. And they spend a lot of time “call back the doctors to change the treatments, you still have to be able to contact them… It’s simple, today, I pay a full-time person to call the doctors back and try to place orders for products that are out of stock. It’s unmanageable.” Purchasing turns into a battle. “We are constantly checking suppliers’ stocks to see if things are moving and, when we can’t order right away, it’s too late,” describes Amandine Tesson-Richez.
For Flecaine, once morest heart problems, or Amoxicillin, the medicines agency (ANSM) has authorized them to have capsules prepared by approved pharmacies, so most do so.
While waiting for a clearing up, the fed up is tangible. “ Nervously, it’s complicated ».
Amandine Tesson-Richez, pharmacist in Champniers, tries to support her patients as best as possible in the face of shortages.
Photo Quentin Petit
Antidiabetics: alternatives also in short supply
Trulicity, an injectable anti-diabetic drug, is one of the biggest absences from pharmacies at the moment. Initially, doctors prescribed alternatives except that over time, even these alternatives are out of stock. So, they fall back on tablets. “Except it’s not trivial. For a diabetic patient, one of the most complicated things is finding the right balance. Changing treatment means upsetting this balance”, regrets Jean-Philippe Brégère, president of the Charente pharmacists’ union. The cause is the increase in global demand, competition from other countries, but also a new “fashion” which has invaded social networks: the diversion of these antidiabetic drugs to lose weight. This led to a surge in false prescriptions and misuse of prescriptions. “According to a sales representative from the laboratory, this phenomenon only represents 2% of sales”tempers Pauline Martin, director of the CERP dispatcher in Soyaux.
Diversion of Trulicity to lose weight, on TikTok, examples abound.
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