French health watchdog recommends ending reimbursement for homeopathic drugs

Boiron SA

28/06/2019 16:57

PARIS, June 28 (Reuters) - France's health watchdog on
Friday recommended that social security stop reimbursing
patients for homeopathic drugs, citing insufficient
effectiveness.
    For nine months the HAS watchdog investigated the effects of
the alternative medicine on 24 medical conditions, including
anxiety, foot warts and acute breathing infections and said it
did not find sufficient scientific evidence to justify continued
state reimbursement of homeopathic drugs.
    Health minister Agnes Buzyn will now make a decision based
on the recommendation. She has said in the past she would abide
by HAS' recommendation on homeopathy, an alternative medicine
that treats patients with highly diluted substances. 
    Shares of French pharmaceutical lab Boiron  BOIR.PA , one of
the world's leading homeopathic drug makers, were suspended from
trading in May and again earlier this week after details of the
HAS recommendation were disclosed by French media.
    The end of reimbursement in France would be a blow for the
firm, which depends on the French market for about 60% of its
605 million euros annual revenues. Boiron employs about 3,600
people, most of them in France, where it makes all of its
products.
    The company has criticized the HAS process. "This
recommendation was issued in a record time and doesn't take into
account homeopathy's specificity," Boiron said on Friday in a
statement.    
    The company's shares are down 22% so far this year.
    About 600 Boiron employees, doctors and patients dressed in
white demonstrated in front of the town hall of Lyon, close to
Boiron's headquarters.
    "Production will be directly impacted by falling sales
triggered by the end of reimbursement," said Cynthia Velin, 21,
"We are all worried."

 (Reporting by Gilles Guillaume, Simon Garraud and Catherine
Lagrange
Writing Inti Landauro
Editing by Geert De Clercq and Toby Chopra)
 ((Inti.Landauro@thomsonreuters.com;))