2024-09-30 10:06:00
Alert, French heritage threatened. Can we imagine the United States appropriating Léon Marchand, without moving a finger, or Zinédine Zidane? Italy take back the Mona Lisa or Nice without suffering a declaration of war in exchange? Les Misérables becoming a German work without reliving Verdun? Of course not, eternal France will always be there to defend its wonders. Based on this postulate, should we do everything to keep the drug Doliprane, which saved us so much from a poorly negotiated hangover, under the tricolor flag?
The tablet has been shaking up the pharmaceutical transfer window for several days. Sanofi is not closing the door to transfers to Opella, one of its groups which produces, among other things, the famous paracetamol-based medication. Among the two remaining offers, an American, the American investment fund CD & R. “The risk is to see the production of medicines being relocated, and that France still loses this health autonomy”, estimates Samira Guennif , health economist and teacher at the UFR health, medicine and human biology at Sorbonne Paris Nord University. An autonomy already seriously undermined (remember the masks during the Covid crisis): “Today, most of the medicines sold in France are produced abroad. »
A lack of margin made in France?
The problem is that once manufactured outside the country, their delivery is far from guaranteed – a question of national priority and priority market. In the case of Doliprane, “the new owners could look for more promising markets where they can sell it more expensively, its price being regulated in France,” believes Samira Guennif. Today, a box of Doliprane is sold on average for 2.15 euros and “only” brings in 75 cents to the laboratory, the rest being between the wholesaler and the pharmacist. It is this lack of margin that Sanofi mentions when putting its toy on sale.
An argument that is not necessarily admissible for Nathalie Coutinet, teacher of health economics at Sorbonne Paris Nord University. “This regulatory pricing problem concerns more generics [auquel le Doliprane n’appartient pas, contrairement à ce qu’on pourrait croire]so not really Opella. This would be more the case for Biogaran, large suppliers of generics and which still remains profitable. Finally, I am waiting for someone to prove to me that medicines are sold more expensively elsewhere than in France…”
Doliprane, really an essential?
A potentially window-dressing speech, but a problem that remains. “Even if Doliprane continued to be delivered to France, at the same price, we would lose all the advantages: local employment, taxation… There is no good thing in seeing it leave under foreign ownership,” adds Samira Guennif .
National flagship and striking example of its success – 453 million boxes sold each year – Doliprane, as practical as it is for our headaches, “is not essential or vital, underlines Nathalie Coutinet, extending the case to other Opella products such as Maalox (to combat stomach aches). It is a symbol but losing the production of certain anti-cancer molecules would be much more damaging. »
Save soldier Doliprane, okay, but how?
Not a reason to let him slip away in Opella – especially given the headaches to come in both politics and economics for France. A Zidane is not essential, but we keep him anyway. “New drugs, “innovative molecules” as they are called, are very rarely produced domestically, but rather in Germany or the United Kingdom. If we also lose the rare medications we already have…” sighs Samira Guennif. Same observation for Nathalie Coutinet: the potential loss of a symbol must be an opportunity to wake up to our health autonomy, four years after having made it national property after Covid.
“Of course we must do everything to keep Doliprane in France,” underlines Doctor Jérôme Marty, general practitioner and president of the UFML-Syndicat. There is already a significant shortage of treatment and medicines, particularly due to relocations to so-called emerging countries. On average, 80 products are missing from pharmacies. If we could avoid making the situation even worse…”
What if we got involved in sanitation?
So be it, let’s save soldier Doliprane. It remains to be seen how? And that’s where the problem lies. “The means of action are limited”, understates Nathalie Coutinet. Already, Sanofi is a private group and therefore does what it wants. The State, which is nevertheless quite involved in the economic life of the group and which had notably co-financed a mobile vaccine factory “unique in the world” of the group in Neuville-sur-Saône (Rhône), can certainly scold the pharma giant, admits the expert, but it will only remain a nice bit of pressure, and not a constraint.
“We need a European industrial policy, like the United States. The latter have invested between 400 and 800 billion to relocate the production of medicines, Samira Guennif would like. But in Europe, we don’t have these amounts, even if we should invest them…”
“The State cannot do much at the moment,” concludes Nathalie Coutinet. This is perhaps the opportunity to change the levers of action, to make certain drugs public production. It would not be aberrant to declare the pharmaceutical sector as being strategically key, like that of armaments. This would avoid remaining immobile in the face of these risks of acquisition abroad. » Because if France really wants to protect these wonders, it might as well give itself the means.
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