SANOFI AND FOURNIER WELLCOME DRUG SECTOR DEAL

The director-general of the French drugs group Laboratoires Fournier, Bernard Majoie, has said that the new agreement to be signed shortly by the drug industry with the government (Marketletter November 29) will enable the industry to switch from an interventionist and bureaucratic system to a concerted effort to control drug prices.

Jean-Francois Dehecq, president of Elf Sanofi, has also said that a new drug pricing policy was vital, and that the government had now realized that innovation in the industry had to be recompensed. Interestingly, at a recent press conference in London (see pages 26-27), the company's finance chief, Jean-Paul Leon, said that at that point he did not know "how bad" the French measures would be, but that "clearly they can't be good."

A spokeswomen for the French drugmakers association, SNIP, said that as the Marketletter was going to press, no agreements had been signed with the government, therefore details have still not been released. However, as previously reported, the core elements of the proposals deal with prices versus volume, and with the government annually indicating its "desirable" drug spending growth limit. Companies may offer promotional spending reductions and agreed export or employment levels.