French antibiotics consumption falls

The French are consuming fewer antibiotics but the authorities say the level is still far too high and want to reduce it even further. The reimbursement of antibacterials is expected to have fallen 8% in 2006, according to the health fund organization, the CNAM, representing savings of 52.0 million euros ($68.6 million). However, this compares with a target reduction of 63.0 million euros and the latest available figures for consumption to 2003 show the French still consume twice as many antibiotics as the Germans and three times more than the Dutch. The number of packs sold between 2002 and 2005 is estimated to have fallen in France about 13% but this still puts the country as Europe's leading consumer. The CNAM says that about a third of this consumption is inappropriate and adds that anti-infectives are often prescribed for viral diseases which only treat bacterial conditions.

Antibiotics account for 4% of the French drug market and cost over 600.0 million euros a year. Doctors tend to prescribe large quantities of modern antibiotics which the CNAM says are markedly more costly than older agents. These include macrolides such as Pfizer's Zithromax (azithromycin) and third-generation cephalosporins such as Sanofi-Aventis' Orelox (cefpodoxime). The CNAM has said these two categories alone are between six and 17 times more expensive than amoxicillin - either Clamoxyl or generic versions. Orelox accounts for 79.0 million euros annually in health fund reimbursement.

Leading drug companySanofi-Aventis accepts that the French are major drug consumers and is supporting the CNAM's efforts to restrain over-prescribing, but stresses that the aim should be to prescribe more effectively rather than to prescribe more cheaply. Jacques Cessot, director of commercial operations at Sanofi-Aventis, has said that prescriptions of generic amoxicillin have been increasing once again over the past year.