Payments Review For French Pharmacists

Just days before the French elections, the government has decided tomeet pharmacists halfway over their demand for a payment review. The current degressive margin system will not be abandoned immediately, but Social Affairs Minister Jacques Barrot has agreed to move now to improve margins.

Under the present system, the dearer a drug, the lower the pharmacist's margin. Mr Barrot says he will reduce the degressive character of the system by cutting the number of graduations from six to three, and leaving a range in the center covering 90% of products - those sold by makers at 10-200 French francs ($1.73-$34.62).

Pharmacy federation president Bernard Capdeville says this means pharmacists' margins, which had been falling 0.5% a year for the last six years, would now drop only 0.2% a year. He sees the move as a first step in reforming the system.