Since 2013, the pharmaceutical laboratory has been fighting to revive old essential molecules threatened to disappear from the therapeutic arsenal.
by Zeliha Chaffin
At each new file that lands on his desk, the rule is always the same. “We verify that the drug responds to an obvious medical need, then we assess whether its development is technically possible in France or in Europe. If we are 85 %, we go for it,” explains Thierry Hoffmann, director general of Delbert laboratories. For nine years, this discreet pharmaceutical company, installed in Paris, has been flying to the aid of old essential drugs threatened with disappearance. “In nine years, we have revived about fifteen of them. It is a great success,” he continues with pride.
It all started in 2013, when Thierry Hoffmann, pharmacist in the industry, and Marc Childs, psychiatrist doctor, break their piggy bank to buy the Delbert laboratories. “During our professional career, we were shocked to see large pharmaceutical laboratories abandon old drugs, however still very effective and essential to certain patients, because they were no longer profitable or because of production difficulties “, Says Mr. Hoffmann. The duo then set a challenge: redeem these old drugs to the Big Pharma in order to give them a second breath.
In the process, the two partners are starting to draw up a list of products in danger, where they meticulously identify essential drugs regularly out of stock or in marketing stop.
Sanitary sovereignty
In 2014, they embarked on their first rescue by acquiring the American Abbott the Vercyte, a treatment against Vaquez’s disease (because of which the patient produces too many red blood cells), prescribed when the treatment of reference does not work, and for which no other solution exists. “The supplier of the raw material had decided to stop its production for financial reasons. At the time, 2,000 French patients were treated with this product and risked dying if it disappeared,” observes Mr. Hoffmann.
Delbert teams then set out to completely redevelop the product from A to Z, from the synthesis of the active ingredient to the manufacture of the finished product. The task is not easy, because the Vercyte molecule, the pipobroman, is a combat gas derivative that few industrialists have the capacity to manipulate. To this difficulty is added another constraint that the laboratory has imposed on its launch: relocating drug productions as much as possible on tricolor or European soil to guarantee health sovereignty. Despite everything, the laboratory manages to find an expert in fine chemistry in France, then calls on the Delpharm shaped, in Lille, for the production of the finished product.
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