2024-04-25 11:00:00
At Eurovision, every year for 50 years, France arrives full of great ambitions. But the disillusionment is almost systematic, with France struggling – all relative artistic quality aside – to find European support. In the area of drug relocations, the same air is looming.
On April 24, Roland Lescure, Minister Delegate for Industry and Energy, presented a manifesto calling for a coordinated European plan for the relocation of medicines. It is a question of strengthening public procurement, creating economic support instruments, regaining competitiveness in relation to Asia and distributing efforts. Eight other member states support the approach. Except that this list is sorely lacking in weight. Apart from Italy and the Netherlands, as well as Hungary for generic medicines, Slovakia, Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Malta are not leaders in continental pharmaceutical production. The absence of Germany, Ireland, Spain and Belgium are extremely lacking at this stage.
However, the time was right for this manifesto. The same day, the EU formalized the creation of its Alliance for Critical Medicines, which will publish recommendations before the end of the year to find industrial responses, such as relocation or diversification of supply chains, to fight once morest shortages of essential medicines. In a speech, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, insisted on “the need to strengthen our economic security», evoking the “mobilization of national and European funding» to support European pharmaceutical production capacities.
Limited drug relocation projects in Europe
In the post-Covid era, drug relocation initiatives have remained national and limited, except in France. Among the largest European projects, the 100 million euro project carried out by Seqens to rebuild a first paracetamol factory in Europe, in Roussillon (Isère), and the 200 million euro project by Sandoz in Austria to increase its amoxicillin capacities. Other major producing countries seem less concerned. Germany already has the largest pharmaceutical base in Europe, although its chemical industry, essential for synthetic active ingredients, is suffering. For its part, Ireland focuses mainly on large biotechnology projects.
For essential medicines, the context is just as disabling. In the midst of turmoil, the French producer EuroAPI will abandon the production of 13 active ingredients in Europe by 2027, with two factories threatened in the United Kingdom and Italy. This is already causing tensions in the supply of antibiotics in Europe. Servier is also considering selling its French generics subsidiary Biogaran, with a real risk of industrial disengagement. Without rapid weight support, the French impulse risks running out of steam.
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