PARIS, Feb 18 (APM) - The chair of France's national chamber of pharmacists (CNOP), Isabelle Adenot, has criticised an order setting out the new arrangements for displaying the prices of drugs in pharmacies, in a note accompanying an electronic newsletter.
The Official Journal (JO) order was published early this month, following the deletion of the pharmaceutical "vignette" in July last year - a small label on medicine boxes featuring the price of the product and its social security reimbursement rate.
Some of the provisions of the order apply immediately, although most will apply as of July 1. But Adenot said the JO order was "incomprehensible".
“It took several hours to assimilate and re-write the text as clearly as possible” she said in the Monday note, saying the order's text was particularly confused.
“The title of the order informs that it concerns information for the consumer on the price of drugs in pharmacies, however, Article 1 concerns, at least in part, hospital pharmacies,” she pointed out.
Adenot added the order is “illogical,” in particular because featuring the reimbursement rate is optional for reimbursable drugs exposed to public view, but compulsory for products not exposed.
She also drew attention to the complicated nature of the system. “The consumer/patient should find in alphabetical order in the paper catalogue the drugs, not exposed to public view, under their international non-proprietary name (INN)! Difficult in the case of throat lozenges,” she said.
Finally, Adenot expressed “anger” at the directorate general for competition, consumer affairs and repression of fraud (DGCCRF). Last week, it announced “checks and sanctions” in connection with application of the provisions in the order.
“It took over two months to publish the order…IT service companies (SSI) and pharmacists will only have four months to modify their tools (IT software and hardware),” added the CNOP chair for whom information on prices is “owed to the public, absolutely and legitimately”.
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