Economist calls for fairer French drug pricing

French economist Jean-Marie Lozachmeur has called for a fairer drug pricing system in the country to provide a level playing-field with other European Union nations. A German firm launching a product in a new therapeutic class can fix the price itself. A drugmaker in a similar position in the UK can define the selling price. However, in France the price of new drugs is usually the result of a negotiation between the company and the regulators. Mr Lozachmeur notes that Portugal follows France in its drug pricing system, Ireland takes into account the UK, Danish, French, German and Netherlands prices.

The result of all this is that new medicines arrive on the markets where the drug companies can expect the highest return - in the UK for example. New products are launched on the UK market months before they are introduced in France. The economist says that French drug prices are fixed as a function of volumes sold and reviewed every five years but sometimes they are also forcibly imposed by the authorities at a reference price. If this exceeds a certain level the patient is not fully reimbursed. The drugmakers argue that prices in France do not compensate for the increasing cost of R&D.

Mr Lozachmeur proposes that, to emerge from this system, the price of copy-cat medicines might be reduced. He cites the experience from 2003 onwards of Norway, where the authorities decided that reimbursements of generic drugs should not exceed an average based on the market prices for these copies and, in two years, had generated a 30% cut in prices.