[Pharmaceuticals: a strategic national industry]

Asked by Mme Nicole Fontaine, Delegate Minister of Industry, to help the government with its ongoing reflections on pharmaceutical industrial strategy, and the necessary autonomy of our country in the face of major commercial threats, a working group of the French National Academy of Medicine consulted representatives of five French and two foreign major drug companies. Their statements can be classified in four categories:--the first concerns new medications, which must be approved successively by three commissions, whose opinions are often delayed and influenced by economic considerations;--second, public and private research are both insufficient and are sometimes hindered by procedural restrictions,--third, the pharmaceutical industry is unable to deal with frequent and unforseeable political upheavals,--France does not adequately recognize the strategic importance of the pharmaceutical industry in the national economy. The Academy makes several recommendations: the French pharmaceutical industry should be considered as a national priority, the strategic importance of national pharmaceutical companies should be recognized, a multi-annual contract should be signed with manufacturers, clinical trials should be facilitated in France, relationships between the national pharmaceutical industry and public research structures should be reinforced, and an inter-ministerial Council on Pharmaceuticals should be created. This study was supplemented by a survey of veterinary medications, the results and conclusions of which are very similar to those outlined above for human medicines.