Source: O Estado de S. Paulo, 11/07/2007

11/07/2007 - The pharmaceutical industry represents a headache for governments in all countries, particularly in underdeveloped countries, where the health status of the population is precarious and their purchasing power is clearly lower than basic needs. To a large extent, this situation stems from the fact that there is no correlation between the cost of raw materials, which go into the composition of medicines, and the very high cost of research to arrive at a medicinal formula that is efficient.

In Brazil, many means collaborate to try to resolve this dilemma, from price fixing for medicines, with great failure, to the production of generics, clearly cheaper, of which national companies account for 80% of sales.
The BNDES and the Ministry of Health are trying to help the national pharmaceutical industry to get out of a very tight financial situation in order to increase production on the one hand and improve its economic performance on the other in order to have more resources to invest in research. of new medicines, since most of the new medicines are based on active principles from the Brazilian flora.

In a country like Brazil, where public health plays a decisive role in serving a population with insufficient purchasing power, it is clear that the guarantee of purchase by the State is fundamental for the national pharmaceutical industries to improve their conditions of competitiveness in the face of foreign competition. , whose cost is only 2% of the product price, basically referring to transport, compared to 33% in the case of a national company.

The world economy clearly shows that the concentration of companies allows savings that are directed towards research programs. For this reason, the BNDES decided to help national companies, in a concentration process, including the participation of foreign companies. The bank estimates that the pharmaceutical industry will invest R$ 2007 billion between 2011 and 6,1. In the current year alone, it is estimated that the sector will carry out investments of R$ 1,9 billion, with BNDES financing, which should reach R$ 972,5 million, most of which have already been approved.

The success that Brazil has had in the production of generic medicines allows us to expect that the pharmaceutical sector will play an important role in the production of new medicines.