France has closed its 2025-2026 winter medicines supply monitoring plan after a season focused on products exposed to recurrent pressure during respiratory infection peaks. The monitored products included antibiotics, paracetamol, corticosteroids and asthma treatments.
The National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (Agence nationale de sécurité du médicament et des produits de santé, ANSM) published Plan hivernal 2025-2026 : une année marquée par l’absence de tensions sur les produits de santé suivis (Winter plan 2025-2026: a year marked by the absence of supply pressures on the monitored health products) on 14 April 2026 and revised it on 17 April.
ANSM convened the plan’s monitoring committee on 9 April 2026. Participants included patient representatives, health professionals, medicine supply-chain actors and institutions. The committee reviewed respiratory infection trends with Public Health France (Santé publique France, SPF) and examined medicine availability and consumption across the products followed during the winter.
Following that review, ANSM reported that the 14 sentinel molecules monitored under the plan had remained available nationally. It said availability had been maintained at manufacturer, wholesaler and community pharmacy level, with supply sufficient to meet patient needs.
The agency also reported lower pharmacy sales of paediatric antibiotics than in the previous year, continuing a multi-year trend. It recorded higher use of some adult antibiotic strengths, including amoxicillin and clavulanic acid 1000 mg/125 mg, compared with the pre-Covid reference period.
ANSM ended the plan after acute respiratory infections returned to usual seasonal levels in early April. It will now conduct a lessons-learned review and prepare the 2026-2027 winter plan. The approach keeps winter medicines supply under formal seasonal surveillance and gives manufacturers, wholesalers and pharmacies a defined route for identifying pressure on products where shortages can quickly affect routine access.
Source: National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products, ANSM
Link: Plan hivernal 2025-2026 : une année marquée par l’absence de tensions sur les produits de santé suivis (Winter plan 2025-2026: a year marked by the absence of supply pressures on the monitored health products)
Date: 14 April 2026
