France's LEEM protests "imposition" of generics

France's drug industry trade association (LEEM) has vehemently denounced the intention of the government's National Union of Sickness Insurance Funds (Uncam) to impose a program that compels doctors to prescribe generic drugs.

According to the LEEM, the Uncam decision was taken without consulting drugmakers and requires the pharmacies in 2007 to substitute generic drugs for branded products in 75% of cases, up from 70% in the current year. One of the provisions that provokes the most outrage for the LEEM is the Uncam decision that, where the generic and branded drug have the same price, the generic must be favored by the pharmacist, or the latter faces financial penalties.

The LEEM's president, Christian Lajoux, said: "France is rapidly aligning itself with levels of generic drug penetration, copying other countries in the process, without the need for recourse to compulsion that is in contradiction with the will to maintain in France a dynamic and innovative drug industry."