Mexico City.- Alejandro Svarch, head of Cofepris, said that in the current market dynamics, medicines can be a health solution but they can also become an economic catastrophe for families.
It is therefore imperative to transform the State from a mere administrator to a provider, regulator and person responsible for the resources allocated to health care, said the official while participating in the inauguration of the Eleventh Conference of the Pan-American Network for the Harmonization of Pharmaceutical Regulation.
“But also that the State participate by promoting a pharmaceutical industrial policy that guarantees and materializes the production of safe, effective, quality medicines that are accessible to all,” he added. Svarch warned that a market without a State is a black market.
“Our understanding of medicine as a social good includes the promotion of research, development, production, supervision, accessibility, marketing and, of course, pharmacovigilance.”
In the production of drugs, the commissioner assured, the State must establish the guidelines for public-private collaboration always for the benefit of the common interest. “In synergy, the actors of the National Health System, the economic sector and the industry must relate and collaborate with a shared mission, prioritizing the protection and attention of the real health needs,” he said. Alejandro Svarch commented that after the health emergency due to Covid-19, all countries were forced to modify their regulatory processes and in that sense, international cooperation represented the anchor so that they were in a position to respond to the attention of the pandemic. Therefore, he added, this network of harmonization of pharmaceutical regulations and its revitalization is strategic. In his turn, Jorge Alcocer, Secretary of Health, highlighted the relevance of regulatory harmonization in the region. “To understand this, it is enough to remember two very important moments that shook the foundations of the health systems I have referred to, both globally and regionally. First, the first and which I consider the worst infamy, was the commercialization of health, considering it as a market good, led to the disappearance of the main axes of public health as a protector of the well-being of the population,” he said. “Second, the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, where we experienced the terrible consequences of the commercialization and corruption of public health structures, especially in access to medicines and supplies of maximum need. This harmonization is the greatest example of convergence of different regulatory and legislative health frameworks, from respect for national public policies and common concern for the health of the population.” Jarbas Barbosa, director of the Pan American Health Organization, and Alicia Bárcena, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, were present at the inauguration through video messages. José Moya Medina, representative of PAHO/WHO Mexico, participated in person; Judit Rius Sanjuan, Director of the Department of Innovation, Access to Medicines and Health Technologies, representing the Secretariat of the PARF Network, and Alfredo Rimoch Lewinberg, representative of the national pharmaceutical industry.
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