No Clear Plans for Medicine Supply

Juan Ferrer, Director, the Institute of Health for Welfare (INSABI), announced in early October that the institute decided to not activate long-term agreements with the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) for the purchase of medicine for 2023. The UNOPS-INSABI collaboration was met with criticism, despite the UN’s award for UNOPS’ support for the efficient and transparent procurement of medicines and medical supplies in Mexico.

In 2021, Mexico and UNOPS signed an agreement to provide technical assistance for the acquisition of medication to promote better management practices and gain access to a larger pharmaceutical market. However, the healthcare system has struggled with drug shortages, and the contracts for medical supplies ended up going mostly to Mexican companies, as reported by MBN.

Ferrer stated that Biological and Reagent Laboratories of Mexico (BIRMEX) would oversee the national distribution system in 2023. On November 30, 2021, retired general Jens Pedro Lohmann was named BIRMEX’s CEO, after changes in the acquisition and distribution model for medicines led to shortages. According to Expansión, President López Obrador changed this model in 2019, but the first consolidated purchase resulted in a 62 percent medicine shortage. Following this event, the government started to purchase medicine from other countries until it signed the agreement with UNOPS, which is now terminated.

Initially, the Ministry of Defense was established as the body in charge of medicine distribution, but now BIRMEX will take over. “We are working on improving distribution so that medicine reaches its users. We need medicine to leave warehouses and not stay in the hands of those that do not need them… BIRMEX will be responsible for the national distribution system,” said Ferrer to the Chamber of Deputies.

However, BIRMEX has also been subject to controversy regarding corruption and bankruptcy. According to El Economista, López Obrador instructed BIRMEX to create a national medicine distribution system in 2020, but the struggling organization has not yet managed to make this happen. According to the same source, BIRMEX also purchased highly overpriced supplies that year that could not be distributed and remained in storage. Furthermore, during Pedro Zenteno’s administration of BIRMEX, the company suffered heavy losses and many of its international transactions proved to be fake. Zenteno said that this was the responsibility of Raul Garcia, the Finance and Administration Director, who also reported donated medicine by Spain as purchases.

According to the often-critical La Crónica, the company only reached 7.5 points out of a possible 60 in the technical qualification of an IMSS tender for the national distribution of medicines in May, 2022. The organization scored zero on infrastructure and logistics, even though it only competed to distribute in Mexico City and the State of Mexico.

COFEPRIS has not given a specialized distribution license to BIRMEX, whose debt increased during this administration on the back of its bad buy. The Economic Development for Sinaloa Council (CODESIN) reported that BIRMEX’s plan to build a storage and distribution unit in the North of Mexico has not been completed a year after its announcement.

As previously reported by MBN, the government had hoped that the changes to the acquisition system would generate savings and help combat corruption, but a year after going into effect its new system appears to have failed. Experts agreed that it is necessary to gather more data to identify pitfalls, risks and opportunities. Immediate concerns include how to augment domestic production, how to balance global and local supply chains and the need to differentiate medication through standards or certifications. Regardless, “this is not a problem that can be solved unilaterally, from either the private, public or civil sector; it requires interaction on behalf of all three to generate ideas free of as many blind spots as possible,” said Miguel Lombera, President, CANIFARMA.