Growing imports of medicines in Latin America

Since 2019, in the Latin American pharma market, imports have doubled the number of exports, writes The Pharma Letter's local correspondent.

The situation became more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, when countries in the region had to import vaccines from Europe, Asia and North America.

This state of affairs, which is confirmed by a report by the executive secretariat of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, is due to various reasons such as new technological developments happening elsewhere, a domestric industry that only produces generics and not innovative medicines, and a high dependence on multinationals. In addition to those factors are issues that impact imports and local economies, such as inflation and the increase in value of the dollar.