Interview with Patrick Oscar
General Delegate of GIE GERS and Managing Director of GERS SAS
The GERS pharmaceutical consortium (Groupement pour l'Élaboration et la Réalisation de Statistiques), which collects and analyzes sales statistics on medicines and other health products, was among the earliest supporters of TSE Health Center. Access to its unique databases helps TSE to develop ground-breaking research on regulation and innovation in the drug sector. Patrick Oscar, General Delegate of GIE GERS and Managing Director of GERS SAS, talked to us about the value of this data and the partnership.
In what ways does the GERS group contribute to the health of the pharmaceutical sector?
GIE GERS is an economic interest group created in 1974 by pharmaceutical companies to pool information about the sales of their drugs to improve analysis, consulting, and decision-making with stakeholders in the sector. Since 2010, GIE GERS has entrusted GERS SAS, part of the Cegedim health technology group, with the development, production, and marketing of the data, as well as the execution of studies. We currently have 200 members (pharmaceutical firms) who trust us. This model is unique in Europe and in the world, as is the exhaustiveness and robustness of the data.
Our data are of great benefit to pharmaceutical companies, public authorities, and other institutions. They help to improve understanding of retail and hospital markets, and allow us to produce studies to meet the specific needs of various stakeholders. GIE GERS is also an essential interface between healthcare companies and public authorities since GERS data has been adopted as the reference in conventional agreements between the industry and the health authorities. As such, GERS is a key player in the monitoring of drug policy and a legitimate and trusted third party that facilitates discussions between laboratories and public authorities.
What key metrics do you provide with the data?
Thanks to Sell In (pharmacy purchases) and Sell Out (pharmacy sales) data, we can provide healthcare companies and institutions with several indicators for monitoring pharmaceutical drug consumption in France in terms of volume and value in various segments: city, hospital, generic and biosimilar drugs, etc. We can drill down to finer geographic levels, such as the region or department, or even more limited geographic areas. These indicators are used to monitor the financial regulation of the drug industry, the price reduction policy, and the penetration rate of generic drugs in France.
With our real-life database from Thin® (The Health Improvement Network), we have access to accurate anonymized data for more than 4.5 million patients. The information available includes patient profile, prescribing physician specialty, pathologies/diagnoses, clinical outcomes, and treatments. This data allows us to monitor, for example, the activity of doctors and specialists in France, the evolution of pathologies, and the share of teleconsultation.
In 2022, GERS acquired Clinityx, an innovative medical data firm which works with data producers to provide academics, scientific societies and industrialists with an RWE (Real-World Evidence) platform that facilitates and accelerates the analysis of real-life data and the SNDS (France’s national health data system).
How does the GERS-TSE partnership help to advance research on public-health concerns?
We support researchers in health economics, with a view to better understanding the economic and political issues in our sector, and ultimately to improving quality and access to care. We provide TSE researchers with all the data on drug purchases and sales in pharmacies at the national level as well as doctors' prescription data via the Thin® database. In return, the work carried out by Pierre Dubois and others at TSE, including PhD students, provides us with better knowledge about health economics, the challenges of regulating the drug market, and the better use of drugs.
We are delighted that the data provided by our teams can inspire and facilitate TSE research on pressing topics such as drug shortages, development of teleconsultations, diabetes treatment decisions, parallel trade in medicines, and the economics of antibiotics. The subject of drug shortages is of particular interest to us because GERS has developed a tool for monitoring supply tensions in real time, which we have made available to the relevant authorities. The results of TSE’s work in this area allow us to better understand the determinants of these shortages. Teleconsultation is an indicator that we monitor regularly, and the work carried out by TSE enables us to complete our analyses. We also place great value on any research concerning drug policy, such as TSE analysis of the incentives for controlling antibiotic prescriptions.
Interview published in TSE Reflect, March 2023