PANAMA

On March 28, during the meeting of the Technical Committee of the Executive Branch, which is working to solve the shortage and high price of medicines, Vice President Juan Gabriel Carrizo established April 11 as the deadline for submitting concrete proposals. The recommendations will then be sent to the President, Laurentino Cortizo, to be made official by decree. On the other hand, on March 25, the Ministry of Health published Executive Decree Nº36 which establishes the list of 130 medicines which are in critical shortage in the Social Security Fund (CSS in Spanish). This list enables the Executive to purchase them through more flexible mechanisms. The decree is already in force.

The Technical Board agreed that the recommendations should include solutions in terms of simplification and digitalization of processes of the Pharmacy and Drug Directorate of the Ministry of Health. On this point, the director of the Government Innovation Authority (AIG in Spanish), Luis Oliva, assured that they received a transfer of USD 5 million to carry out this process and thus facilitate the sanitary registrations and importation of medicines for distributors.

Among the 130 medicines that the Executive declared to be in critical shortage in the CSS are Tocilizumab 2mg/ml in concentrated solution and Rituximab 100mg and 500mg in solution. With this list, the Executive is authorized to implement the regulation that establishes a more flexible mechanism for joint or unilateral purchases by the Ministry of Health and the CSS, established in Executive Decree 26, which formalized the recommendations of the technical board to guarantee access to medicines to the population. During the meeting of the Technical Board, the Director of Public Procurement, Rafael Fuentes, announced that in the short term the first online quotation for national and international suppliers of medicines will be convened.