Health reforms in Latin America and their impact on the pharma industry

Several Latin American countries, given their processes of political change, are immersed in deep discussions about transforming their health systems, writes The Pharma Letter's local correspondent.

This is sometimes creating concerns that access to medicines, which today is progressing successfully in most countries, is in danger.

According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in its report Health Reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean, "there is an urgent need to move towards universal, comprehensive, sustainable and resilient social protection systems, which requires action to overcome the structural weaknesses of most systems in the region, such as lack of financing or chronic underfinancing, the fragmentation of services and the segmentation of the population around their ability to pay."