Question 13134 — pharmacy and medications

Summary

Mr. Léo Walter alerts the Minister of Health and Prevention on France's therapeutic independence through the prism of the Sanofi group's new 2024/2025 savings plan. He would like to recall that during the questions to the Government session on June 6, 2023, he had already alerted MM. the ministers of industry and health regarding the elimination announced on April 13, 2023 of 135 positions in two of Sanofi's French factories: 70 to Aramon in Gard and 65 in Sisteron, in its Alpes-de-Haute-Provence constituency, or more than 10% of the workforce. The MP addresses this new question to the Government following the Sanofi press release dated October 27, 2023, press release detailing the new “savings plan” of 2 billion euros for the years 2024/2025. In this sense, he wishes to draw the attention of the Minister to the following two points: the group pharmaceutical industry benefited from 1.3 billion public employees between 2009 and 2022 for the Research Tax Credit (CIR), not counting exemptions from contributions and other public aid, while over the same period it proceeded with the dismissal of 10,000 people on permanent contracts, including almost half of the positions in research and the closure of 21 sites in France; Sanofi announces that it is separating from its “consumer health” division, producer among others Doliprane and Mucosovan, by listing it separately on the stock exchange from 2024. However, the second half of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 were marked by a shortage of paracetamol (Doliprane), even though it is the most consumed painkiller in France. In short, since 2008, the Sanofi group has continued to accumulate savings plans worth 10 billion euros every two years, to cut hundreds of jobs and to massively sell its sites in France; while at the same time it pays 30 billion euros in dividends to its shareholders. The MP therefore questions the Minister as to the relevance of this stock market listing project subject to market laws, guided by the search for profits and which guarantee neither the holding of minimum stocks of so-called mature drugs, nor French independence for their production. Regarding this last, it also warns of the fact that the sale of non-prescription drugs will ultimately deprive the group's factories of production volumes of active ingredients of these same drugs, which would make them even less profitable for Sanofi and would ultimately lead to fears of a sale of its sites. In addition, Mr. Walter wishes to insist on the necessary creation of a public medicine center, whose mission would be the organization and coordination of care offers in response to the needs of French hospitals and management of stocks of medicines and medical equipment. Unlike private pharmaceutical groups, the French State is not subject to market speculation and is the guarantor of health safety. In view of the crisis in hospitals and the healthcare sector, this creation is urgent, as is the orientation of the CIR towards public research or at least for the purpose non-profit. The therapeutic independence of France and the European Union is at stake. Thus, the MP questions the Minister of Health and Prevention on the measures he intends to take to ensure French therapeutic sovereignty and remind Sanofi of its obligations to produce and hold minimum stocks of medicines. He also questions him on what he intends to put in place to prevent the management of Sanofi to destroy jobs and list part of its drug production on the stock exchange, which must respond to a demand for care and not to a logic of market profitability. Finally, it raises the questions of the necessary control of the use of public funds by Sanofi and the creation of a public drug center.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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