Doliprane: “The government must be less passive in the face of Sanofi”

The observation dates from the Covid crisis: France is experiencing a loss of sovereignty in the production of medicines. To avoid repeating such a fiasco, the communist group in the Senate tabled a bill in December 2020 aimed at creating a public pharmaceutical center to protect this sector from financial speculation and market logic.

While the sale of Doliprane to an American fund causes a scandal, PCF senator Cathy Apourceau-Poly returns to this proposal, consensual within the New Popular Front.

How does the Doliprane affair relaunch the idea of ​​a public medicine center?

We need to think more than ever about this public structure so that we no longer find ourselves faced with a fait accompli: large companies, like Sanofi, make decisions based on their financial interests. This initiative is essential because it would allow us to be autonomous and give all citizens equal access to medicines. Pharmaceutical products must be removed from market logic and financial speculation which drive up prices at the whim of sellers.

We no longer want to chase after other nations, but manufacture in France. If we have complete control over our production, we will be able to escape shortages and the loss of industrial sovereignty. This is what my former colleague in the Senate, Laurence Cohen, had argued with the entire communist group, and the problem arises in the same way even today.

What would it take to save Doliprane? Antoine Armand, Minister of the Economy, threatens to block sales if the drug is no longer produced in France. Is this the right solution?

The government must be less passive towards large companies established in the territory. Blocking this agreement is the least he can do to try to save what remains of our health sovereignty. The State must prevent Sanofi from selling Doliprane, the best-selling drug in France, to the Americans. We cannot accept this.

Its production site benefits from 130 to 150 million research tax credits per year, to finance research and development activities. We cannot continue to give funds to a company that only thinks about enriching its shareholders. The industrialist pockets public money but reduces its payroll and relocates: French workers, whose know-how is invaluable, will find themselves unemployed.

In March, you fought against the liquidation of the Synthexim pharmaceutical factory in Calais. If, over the course of the closures, we lose the possibility of producing medicines in France, how will we have access to them?

We will then be at the mercy of other countries, forced to buy medicines in Europe or elsewhere in the world. They will impose their prices and we will not be able to oppose them. All this because we do not know how to protect our own industry, which once occupied a dominant place in the European pharmaceutical market. Emmanuel Macron, during the Covid crisis, nevertheless expressed the wish to reindustrialize so as to no longer find ourselves in a situation where we no longer had medicines, masks, gowns, vaccines.

These were the direct consequences of the liberal policy of relocation of production. In fact, the situation is getting worse: factories are still closing. Concerning large industrial sites which risk closing, I propose to nationalize the company temporarily, while a buyer is found. This is what I asked the government for Synthexim, in Calais.

This pharmaceutical factory produced active ingredients necessary for treatment against addictions. The request was refused and production was eventually relocated. If we allow Opella (the branch of Sanofi which produces, among other things, Doliprane – Editor’s note), to be bought by the American fund CD&R, for more than 15 billion euros, we expose ourselves to a risk of shortage. The absence of public industrial policies could lead us there. This is why we urgently need to set up a public medicine center.