As the year draws to a close, the Health Secretary launched the call for buy almost seven million pieces of medicine and more than two million medical supplies that will go to the offices and beneficiaries of the ISSSTEfrom the hospitals of the Marine Secretary and the National Guard.
The call in this phase, for the pharmaceutical national and internationalis to deliver the price quote and quantities to be supplied.
The market study proposes the total purchase of 170 medication keys and 74 healing material.
The Q4 government asked companies to present not only the price per product, but also the documentation supporting copyright, registration with the IMPI and health registration authorizations.
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Between the medicines that will be purchased in higher quantities will be miconazole cream with up to 252 thousand 900 tubes, pantoprazole with up to 160,800 boxes, ibuprofen tablets with 133 thousand 516 pieces either naproxen with 122 thousand 559 pieces.
While the largest quantities of inputs are nitrile glovesgloves for surgery, syringes and hats.
It’s almost 600 thousand gloves of different types that will be purchased, the same as syringes, 55 thousand brushes dental, eight thousand surgical boots and seven thousand 300 sheets of cotton.
On Friday the Government of the 4T published in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) an Agreement in which now the Biological and Reagent laboratories of Mexico (Birmex) are going to take care of the purchase and distribution of medicines and supplies for the seven institutions where health services are provided: IMSS, ISSSTEthe substitute program of the Health Institute for Wellbeing (Insabi), those offered by the health secretariats in the entities, those of Marine and the Armyas well as the National Guard.
With this, within a period of 15 days you must issue the guidelines for carrying out the purchasing processand prior to that, the 4T, through the Ministry of Health, launched the market study for the acquisition of 9.1 million medicines and supplies.
How he made it known The Sun of Mexico this is the fifth time the purchasing process has been changed on the part of the Executive, the first was remove that responsibility from the IMSS and to entrust that task to Insabi, given the impossibility of supplying all the institutions, it was agreed to incorporate the United Nations Office of Project Services (UNOPS). Only in the latter almost six out of every ten drugs were purchased.
The rest were purchased separately by each of the institutions. This led the Ministry of Health to directly resume responsibility and, although it launched the call for market studies and even carried out a biennial purchasefor 2023-2024, total supply was not achieved and direct purchasing continued, mostly without bidding, by the health institutions.
After the disappearance of Insabi, the 4T government will now entrust this work to Birmex. However, at the same time he launched the call for three of the institutions: ISSSTEthose of the Marine Secretary and the National Guard services get medicines and supplies that are required at the first level of service to the population.
Official letter number UAE-CA-381-2023 from the Administrative Coordination of the Economic Analysis Unit, of the Ministry of Health, justifies the procedure of consolidated contracting for the acquisition of medicines, Healing material and else associated health supplies“guaranteeing the best conditions available in terms of price, quality, financing, opportunity and other pertinent circumstances.”
Interested parties, national and international suppliers, had until last Tuesday at 6 p.m. to present their quotes, that is, the price and participation offer.
The detail must specify the unit price in national currency and the cost without VAT must be valid within 60 days.
In the case of patents, the Industrial Property gazette that endorses it must be cited, the health registration number must be indicated and the additional benefits in the offer must be detailed.
Andrés Castañeda, from Cero Desabasto, said that as in other processes, the purchase left several keys empty and now with the change of model it once again generates many doubts, which generates a lack of confidence in the process, which is why the IMSS and the ISSSTE , like the most important systems, is purchasing what was not achieved in the consolidated system.
He explained that in large tenders, “these medicines that are not patented, in which there are many suppliers and involve large volumes, if there is not a well-constructed tender, those items are left empty because the prices must be low and that makes “That doesn’t turn out well for the producers and they don’t get in.”
He acknowledged that leaving offers in large volumes empty is also used as a strategy by companies to pressure prices.
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This is fueled by the “lack of clarity and certainty. For example, if a company is asked to deliver one hundred thousand diclofenacs in three months, it can say that it does not have production capacity and its company could do it, but with a schedule, but that is a consequence of the lack of continuity and clarity.”
The representative of the civil organization pointed out that “that is why it is easier for each company to buy little by little.”