Nearly 600 drugs concerned for this first phase
The National Agency for Medicines Safety (ANSM) has announced an experimental phase which will start on October 1, 2025 and will last two years. This initiative concerns the partial or total dematerialization of the notices of drugs, with the introduction of QR Codes on the boxes in place of the paper notices. For this duration, the paper manual and the QR-Code will coexist in order to familiarize users with new.
This experiment will receive 420 drugs distributed in the hospital and 170 in town. Among the drugs concerned in a hospital environment, there are anticancers such as Imfinzi®, Imudo®, Opdivo®, Yervoy®, Keytruda®, Jemperli®, Herceptin®, Tecentriq® and Mabthera®. In the city, the drugs concerned include certain vaccines such as Shingrix®, Abrysvo®, Rotateq® or Tetravac®, proton pump inhibitors (PPI) such as pantoprazole and omeprazole, statins like suvreza® and equivalents, as well as 1 gram paracetamol (Doliprane®, Viatris®, Benta Lyon®).
A digital transition for medication notices
This system aims to improve access to updated information and their understanding. Digital instructions will be accompanied by new information supports, such as videos explaining how to properly use the medication.
Behind this decision, several arguments put forward by laboratories and health authorities:
- Save time For data updating (an error or adverse effect can be immediately integrated into the digital version);
- Reduction of paper consumption : 10,000 tonnes of notices printed each year;
- Less packaging : simplification of production channels;
- Economy for laboratories : less printing, less logistics.
This transition to all digital is therefore, according to its defenders, a technical progress and a eco -responsible approach. This would also make it possible to make the notices more readable, more accessible to those who consult them on smartphone with visual aids.
A digital fracture impossible to ignore
But this dematerialization raises a major accessibility problem. In France, Almost 17 % of people over the age of 75 do not have internet accessaccording to INSEE. L’illectronismor the inability to use digital tools, still a touch 13 million French.
Some patient associations denounce a “silent danger”, fearing that misunderstandings on dosages or side effects arise. “”We create two -speed access to the drug“, Alerts a spokesperson from France Assos Santé. The risk? Loss of autonomy, even improper use of treatments for an already fragile population.
Faced with criticism, the ANSM ensures that pharmacists will be able to print the instructions on requestbut patients must still know that they have the right-and dare to ask for it.