The sale of medicines outside pharmacies

On Thursday 19 December, the French competition authority published the results of a sector enquiry on medicines. It announced its approval for the supervised sale of non-prescription specialities outside pharmacies.

This approval suggests that medicines will soon appear in our major retail chains. This approval could sound the death knell for the pharmacy monopoly on drug distribution.

The institution considers that self-medication medicines and certain products qualified as frontier products (pregnancy tests, contact lens care products) have only a weak effect on competition in the field of non-reimbursable medicines, as shown by the very large price differences, which can range from €1 to €4. According to the competition authority, the current situation can only be unfavourable to the consumer. The fact that some self-medication medicines can be sold in supermarkets could lead to a price reduction of 11.4 to 16.3%.

The Commission insists that this new practice should be regulated to avoid any excesses, and in particular the transformation of medicines into simple loss-leader products.

As soon as the competition authority announced its decision, Health Minister Marisol Touraine clearly showed her opposition to the distribution of non-reimbursed products in supermarkets. She reaffirmed her attachment to the monopoly of pharmacies. According to the Minister, it is the pharmacy monopoly that allows the distribution of medicines to be secured, thus avoiding the appearance of counterfeits while ensuring access to medicines for all citizens in the country.

Marisol Touraine's reaction to this proposal is that the government is not prepared to accept it. The minister also said that she was "attentive" to the fact that the current negotiations on pharmacists' remuneration "should be concluded quickly". In addition, with regard to the wholesale distribution of medicines, she has commissioned the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas) "to draw up an inventory of the situation and to propose changes, after having heard all the players in the medicines chain".