by Guillaume Bietry
PARIS, July 20 (APM) – European generics manufacturers want the French government to take more measures to encourage the development of a market that lags considerably behind those in other countries, the president of industry body Medicines for Europe Jacek Glinka has told APM.
While the generic penetration rate for Europe as a whole works out at between 50% and 60% of volumes consumed, in France it is around 30%, 20 years after this key way to reduce health insurance expenditure was written into the public health code.
According to the authorities, just over three boxes of reimbursed drugs in every 10 are generics, compared with three out of every four in Germany and the UK.
For the manufacturers, the French situation is due to successive price cuts, which reduce generics manufacturers’ means of promoting their products, and to doctors’ and patients’ lack of confidence in generics, whose efficacy and quality are regularly brought into question.
Glinka said that the authorities do not sufficiently encourage the development of the market.