Sanofi-Aventis chairman blasts generics manufacturers

Jean-Francois Dehecq, chairman of Sanofi-Aventis, has slammed manufacturers of generic pharmaceuticals that use cheap labour in underdeveloped countries to produce generic medication at a low price, before exporting these drugs to richer companies for larger profits.

He told the Financial Times that he was “scandalised” by the practice, where workers in countries including Thailand and India were paid low wages, with their employers then not selling low-cost generics to the local population, but instead selling to western nations.

“They make [drugs] very cheaply and bring them to the north for people who can already pay,” he told the paper.

“It’s a scandal. They are exploiting people in the south. They should deal with their own countries first,” he added.

Last year, episcom business intelligence reported that the generic market was growing in the UK, amounting to 58 per cent of all prescriptions made in 2004.

In December, the Department of Health claimed that the National Health Service could save millions of pounds through prescribing more generic statins for the treatment of high cholesterol.

The department said that if primary care trusts prescribed the generic pravastatin and smivastatin in 69 per cent of cases, the NHS could save over ?87.4 million a year.