ARGENTINA 

• ANMAT (Administración Nacional de Medicamentos, Alimentos y Técnología Médica) recently approved an anti-obesity medication called liraglutide that’s administered daily via an injectable pen. Liraglutide (sold under the brand name Victoza in many markets) has been shown to produce significant weight loss benefits.

• ANMAT also approved another medication — one of the most expensive in the world. Spinraza is used to treat spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a rare neuromuscular disorder. Spinraza has shown to be effective against 3 of the types of SMA, but the first year of treatment can cost $600,000 and the second year can cost up to $300,000.

• PharmaDorf arrived in Argentina in 2016 and recently has beefed up its sales structure by 40%, projecting to double its investment in the Argentine market in 2019, as well as its sales. The company is mostly focused on women’s health, respiratory, cardiovascular and neuroscience. Some of its brands include Avancel, Livianne, Drolzen, Tritace and Cervilane.

• Argentine pharma firm Laboratorios Bagó has become a leader in the Chinese market, with a 45% market share of the amoxicillin-sulbactam antibiotics market. Bagó has been exporting to China for 20 years and grew from selling 150,000 units of its products to 4.2 million units in 2018.

BRAZIL 

• Brazil has made strides in cancer treatment with the recent approval of 4 new cancer medications. These include Lenvima (lenvatnib mesylate) for renal cancer, Lynparza (olaparib) for ovarian cancer, Keytruda (pembrolizumab) for skin cancer and Blincyto (blinatumomabe) for leukemia.

• These are far from the only recent cancer breakthroughs in Brazil. Biological medicine is an up-and-coming cancer treatment that doesn’t have as many side effects as chemotherapy, and Mvasi (bevacizumabe) has now joined the ranks of biological medicines that are approved in Brazil for treating colorectal cancer, breast cancer and more.

• Pharmaceuticals now have a bigger presence in Brazil thanks to manufacturer ACG Group, which opened a massive capsule manufacturing plant in Pouso Alegre. The factory is over 14,000 square feet and will create 500 new jobs in the region.

• Migraine sufferers in Brazil received a big boost with the approval of erenumab (Pasurta), the first medication approved by Brazil that is designed specifically to treat migraines.

CHILE

• Medical marijuana is big business in Chile, where Spectrum Cannabis is investing $10 million to gain approval for three of its products.

• Unfortunately, there is some bad news out of Chile, where recent research indicates that medicine is significantly more expensive than in other Latin America markets. Some drugs, in fact, are up to 24 times more costly than they are elsewhere in the region.

• Tibelia, a hormone treatment for postmenopausal women, will soon be sold in the Chilean market. It’s one of many offerings in the country from the company Mithra.

COLOMBIA 

• Pharmaceuticals are a rapidly growing business in Colombia, where the country now leads the region in capital investment in pharmaceuticals from January to August 2018. Colombia has attracted some $193 million in pharmaceutical sector investments, which trumps Mexico ($157.5 million) and Argentina ($100 million).

• Pharmaceutical manufacturer Biib Colombia has made a $9 million investment in the country in order to provide drugs for diseases such as MS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and muscular dystrophy.

• While most pharmaceutical news focuses on increasing drug prices, the cost of many drugs in Colombia is going down. This is due to the passage of a law known as Circular 7, which is intended to lower the price of medications to more reasonable levels.

• Patients with diabetes and heart disease risk received good news with the approval of a new drug that can be used to treat not only diabetes, but also cardiovascular disease risks related to diabetes.

MEXICO 

• Major pharmaceutical player Novartis is making a big move into Mexico with a $20 million investment in their service center. The result should be not only new medications, but also new jobs.

• Fomento Económico Mexicano (Femsa) is in major growth mode, recently making acquisitions that have made it the second largest pharmacy company in Latin America. Only Similar Pharmacies has a larger presence in the region.

• Hepatitis C treatments took a major step forward in Mexico with the approval of Mavyret. This drug can treat all genotypes of hepatitis C and is more effective than many other hep C treatments.

• Finally, major strides have been made by Mexico’s health regulatory agency, Cofepris, to approve a wide variety of medical devices and drugs. Recently, over 13,000 requests have been approved, including some that had been delayed since 2007.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 

• Pharmaceuticals remain big business in the Dominican Republic, with annual revenue generation of $628 million, movement of 50 million units, and, most important, more than 20,000 jobs in the area. It’s also projected to show growth between 20 and 30 percent over the next year.

GUATEMALA 

• Pharmaceutical giant Bayer has had a business presence in Guatemala that stretches back more than 50 years. They recently invested even more in that relationship with a $41.5 million boost to the region in the form of upgrades and expansions to their Consumer Health plant.

PANAMA 

• Mexico isn’t the only country where Novartis is making waves. With a $4 million investment in Panama, Novartis plans to help more patients with affordably priced medication through their emerging market brands.

PERU 

• The big news out of Peru is the approval and regulation of medical marijuana through a supreme decree from the government. The decree established guidelines for the research, cultivation, importation and commercialization of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
• Pharmaceutical exports are big business in Peru, where the total was more than $49 million between January and November 2018. This represented a 4.8 percent growth over the same period in 2017.

PUERTO RICO 

• Medical marijuana is also making strides in Puerto Rico, where Veritas Pharma plans to research their cannabis product CTL-X for the treatment of acute pain.

Next Steps

Understanding the medical procedures performed in Latin America can help you gauge demand for pharmaceutical products or medical equipment/devices. Contact us to request a demo of SurgiScope, our database of medical procedures performed in LatAm. You can also gain insights into specific markets through our InScope service.

While most of it is structured best for subscribers who use it for propension analysis and to uncover new sales opportunities, there are any number of basic data points that can be helpful for all kinds of Latin American healthcare professionals. With them in mind, we’ve created what we expect to be the first in a series of infographics on Latin American hospitals and healthcare so that our fellow professionals have a quick and handy resource for reference.

Click below to download GHI’s Latin American hospitals infographic.

As per the Colombian Immigration Agency records, the number of international passengers travelling for healthcare services, has grown by 22.9% every year (6,281 tourists in 2012 to 14,339 tourists in 2016).

The cities such as Bogotá, Medellin, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena, and Bucaramanga attract the largest number of international patients who are looking for quality care in healthcare services in the fields of ophthalmology, cardiology, dentistry, neurology, and oncology etc.

A report by Procolombia states that healthcare services in the country are approximately 40% cheaper than in the United States. Besides that, the geographical position of the country is an advantage with its access to a whole continent and highly trained human resources, additionally, international organizations such as Joint Commission International have certified five hospitals for their patient care standards. As per the ranking provided by América Economía, Colombia has 22 hospitals that are listed among the best hospitals in Latin America.

Explore More

To uncover sales opportunities within the Colombian market for capital equipment, medical devices, PACS, RIS and more, contact Global Health Intelligence to learn more about our hospitals database, which tracks more than 130 data points for more than 15,000 hospitals in  Latin America. You can also see which are the best-equipped hospitals in Colombia with our newly released ranking.

To fill this gap, Global Health Intelligence (GHI) decided to delve into its database (which covers 86% of all hospitals in Latin America and now includes Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay) to analyze which hospitals have the highest equipment counts in 4 specific categories:

• Patient care (number of beds)
• Diagnostic imaging equipment
• Cardiovascular equipment
• Maternity unit equipment

These four categories are critical pillars when evaluating patient care. The number of beds within an institution is often an indicator of the size of the hospital and may be correlated to the level of care. Diagnostic imaging equipment is essential to properly diagnose any number of life-threatening and chronic conditions. Cardiovascular equipment is just as important given the prevalence of heart disease in Latin America. A majority of births take place in hospitals and birthing is one of the main activities of most hospitals, which denotes significant importance to maternity units and infant care. While additional categories could have been included, GHI decided to focus on these 4 areas of care in order make the ranking more manageable.

Why Multiple Categories and Countries?

Rankings are often all-encompassing with no specific focus, such as the “The 50 best hospitals.” Given the complexities of healthcare systems in place and the context in which they operate, GHI opted to acknowledge these characteristics by creating a ranking per leading category. This also enables smaller yet more specialized hospitals to form part of the ranking.

GHI applied the same plurality by setting up the rankings per country in order to reflect local market dynamics accurately. For example, Brazil has over 200 million people and over 7,000 hospitals. It would be an unjust comparison to include Brazilian hospitals alongside those of Peru, for instance, a market that’s 10 times smaller.

Rankings for the Best Equipped Hospitals

The best-equipped hospitals in Argentina
The best-equipped hospitals in Brazil
The best-equipped hospitals in Chile
The best-equipped hospitals in Colombia
The best-equipped hospitals in Dominican Republic
The best-equipped hospitals in Mexico
The best-equipped hospitals in Peru
The best-equipped hospitals in Puerto Rico

Dive Deeper

This GHI ranking will give you an initial sense of which Latin American hospitals are best-equipped. But that’s just a surface view. It takes a deeper dive into the data to understand which market segments have the best potential to drive your revenues.

You can get this deep dive by subscribing to our database , which quickly lets you use data visualization tools to see which hospitals have the biggest needs and what those needs are. Parsing that is what will uncover opportunities for your sales team and allow you to grow your revenues in different markets. Check out this video to understand how the database can help drive new and existing revenue streams. Then contact GHI directly for an even deeper sense of how our database can be the perfect tool for your sales team.

The report requested the government to consider the policies for allowing better distribution of professionals in locations deprived of specialists. Two migratory waves were observed in Uruguay; one during the dictatorship and the other during the economic crisis in 2002. However, the situation seems to have reversed with very few doctors migrating to other countries in search of better working conditions.

According to the Medical Union there is zero unemployment in the sector, yet 7% and 10% of Uruguayan doctors work abroad. The majority travel to Spain (51.7%) followed by Chile (24.4%). With the reversal of situation, doctors from other nations are moving to Uruguay for work, especially from Venezuela, Cuba and Pakistan.

Brazil was no exception. The economic downturn resulted in 22% decrease in imports across all major medical devices and equipment.

Download the complete report for more information.

Medical implants are routinely used to disorders but development of “biofilms” on the surface of the device after it is implanted in the human body affects the use and patient post-surgery recovery.

The group of bacteria that usually attaches to medical devices is “staphylococci”. They grow on catheters, heart valves and artificial joints and removal of these colonies requires replacement of the medical device. Each incident of biofilm infection costs EUR50,000-90,000 to the healthcare system.

The research team at Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology, Dublin have discovered that it is possible to prevent communities of staphylococci from forming by targeting the linkages that hold the bacteria together. Addition of a small blocking molecule prevented SdrC protein attached to the surface of the bacteria from recognizing other bacteria. This prevented the bacteria from forming colonies. This breakthrough can potentially reduce the incidence of medical device-related infection.

Declining costs of hardware and robot-enabling software will ensure market growth and encourage collaborations between healthcare providers and technology developers.

The market is primarily driven by the need to streamline operational workflows, improve quality of healthcare, and provide round-the-clock monitoring for geriatric and disabled patients.

The epicenter seems to have shifted from Japan to United States. Many start-ups are cropping up from Silicon Valley, where the future of robotics is being shaped. There is increasing penetration of cognitive computing, mobile application control, and image or speed recognition. Players such as Cyberdyne, iRobot, Aethon and Swisslog have collaborated with healthcare providers and have successfully integrated robots within hospital environments gaining first-mover advantage.

High costs of ownership and lack of reliability on these systems in critical treatment processes are restraining market growth.

The drug is a success after 18 years of research and 25 countries, including Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay have shown interest in obtaining a manufacturing license. Scientists mentioned that the vaccine does not prevent lung cancer and is a complement to the current therapies such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

The vaccine acts as a therapeutic agent and works by strengthening patient’s immune system. It is an antibody that mimics the tumor’s antigens making the immune system work and act against the tumor, without affecting healthy cells. Vaxira can be used on lung cancer patients after the radio and chemotherapy sessions have been completed as per treatment protocol.

Lung cancer is one of the most deadly diseases which is generally goes undiagnosed till the later stages. 90% of patients do not survive more than five years. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), lung cancer kills around 1.38 million people annually across the globe and ~9,000 people in Argentina. Vaxira has been developed by a consortium of private and public sector, Argentina and Cuba.

At the Conference, the medical device associations created a document implementing medtech codes of ethics for governing the medical technology market, including responsibility to people’s lives and health, integrity, independence, transparency, sincere interest, and accountability.

The formally launched document by the inter-American coalition on ethical business practices in the medical technology sector promises to have good organizational practices and not to misuse the resources. The medical technology sectors of respective countries aim to increase access and coverage along with decreasing expenses and improving service delivery to patients.

An annual review of the established principles will be organized to verify that the signatory countries comply with the policies. The “Bogotá Principles” set by the inter-American coalition’s is an expansion of “Kuala Lumpur Principles” signed in by Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies’ respective medical technology sectors for implementing the voluntary codes of ethics.

This initiative aims to highlight the importance high-standard ethical business practices among medical technology manufacturers, distributors, and health care professionals. According to Secretary for Transparency of Columbia, Camilo Enciso, ” Episodes that have known to the public recently, are marking the need to move faster to prevent acts of corruption in a forceful way, training officials, generating channels of denunciation, modernizing codes of ethics and working on self-regulation pacts.”