“The health industry is a sector that has emerged from the crisis,” says Frédéric Collet, president of the Pharmaceutical Companies

The New Factory. – The government presented the 9^e Strategic Council of Health Industries (Csis), launched in early February, as a great ambition and not a classic exercise. Do you feel a particular impulse?

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Frédéric Collet. – I think the term grand ambition is exactly the right one. We were elected among the five strategic sectors of the recovery plan and identified as priorities. First, because we have demonstrated our exceptional ability to mobilize, by ensuring all our businesses. Not a box of medicine was missing during this crisis despite, sometimes, very strong tensions. We have also been able to mobilize ourselves for the development of treatments and vaccines. Less than a year passed between the Chinese government’s alert on the pandemic risk and the authorization of the first vaccines. It is a unique, exceptional sequence, which normally takes between seven and ten years. And during that time, research and development of other programs continued, we maintained the workforce, all of our factories were up and running. When we talk about drug companies, it’s not just big pharma. Half of 260 Leem members are very small or medium-sized enterprises with less than 150 employees. Everyone was involved.

The crisis has given rise to many criticisms. The Pays de Pasteur still does not have a vaccine designed in France. Wouldn’t that be worrying?

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