On January 8, the Chamber of Deputies’ Health Committee progressed on the bill that modifies the Health Code. The bill, better known as Drug Law II (Bulletin No. 9914-11), has obtained Senate approval. At the end of the meeting, President Juan Luis Castro Gonzalez said that the bill is expected to be ruled on by the committee in January. This week the chapters concerning administrative summaries and specialty and itinerant pharmacies will be voted on.

Representatives of the Ministry of Health present at the committee meeting reported that, in the negotiations thus far, 68 agreements had been reached on five major issues: 1) transparency and conflicts of interest, 2) administrative interpretation and administrative summary, 3) medical devices, 4) packaging regulation, and 5) specialty and itinerant pharmacies. Each of these issues was put to a vote without discussion. The negotiations also saw the rejection of some proposals from the Executive Branch itself.

Throughout the debate, two issues were especially key in driving discussion among legislators. First, the regulation of labeling on the packaging of medicines. At the proposal of the Executive Branch, they voted to keep in place article 128 bis of the text passed in the Senate, which establishes general criteria and delegates regulation to the Executive Branch. Second, the Executive branch’s proposal that specialty pharmacies be for profit, which was rejected by 7 votes against.