Governing (by) prices.

Summary This article examines the setting of prices for drugs reimbursed by the State in France, from its origins after the Second World War to the mid-2010s. We analyze the successive forms taken by this policy, from the unilateral administration of prices implemented from 1948 to the 1980s to their negotiation within the framework of agreements between an interministerial committee and manufacturers from the mid-1990s. We defend the thesis that this state control of prices articulates two types of market government: a government of values, aiming to assess drugs on the basis of principles of social justice (promoting public health, respecting the balance of health insurance expenditure, favouring research and development and industrial employment); and a government of conduct, aiming to assess drugs on the basis of considerations of market fairness (ensuring that the prices established guide the conduct of industrialists and market players in the direction of the general interest). Far from being self-evident, the determination of "fair prices" gives rise to confrontations, within the Economic Committee for Health Products and in negotiations between the Committee and manufacturers, between actors with plural and antagonistic conceptions of social justice and market fairness.