“Innovative medicines have improved the quality of life and life expectancy in 73% of the population. Today many diseases that were very complex have become controllable, such as HIV and others such as hepatitis C, which already have a cure in less than ten years,” said Guadalupe Roel, Access & Health policy head for the Farma Bayer Southern Cone division, during Bayer’s Farma Latam 2021. When we think about advances in science and health benefits, the evidence is clear, however, having innovative therapies poses an enormous challenge for all those who participate in the health and healthcare system so that they can really make a difference in life. population.
How is the sustainability of health systems achieved? This is the key question. To this end, Roel explains that “we must interact and organize ourselves among all the actors in order to address the main challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry, patient organizations, health systems, governments, the public and private systems, and patients.”
For Philip Glaser, leader of commercial strategy and access at Bayer Farma Latam, a key piece in this health ecosystem is medicines, and that is where this meeting emphasized Why continue to make medicines? “The first thing that goes through everyone’s mind is to cure diseases, however, the pharmaceutical industry does not only make medicines.” He explains that now one of the trends is to start as early as possible and focus on prevention.
Many times it is said that medicines are the cause of not having sustainability in health systems, however, only 20% of the government’s health budget goes to medicines and 80% to hospitalization. That is why prevention becomes essential, “with this we would send many patients home.”
Another area for drug access in the region is monitoring. “A patient starts treatment but there is no monitoring and many times all that happens is valuable data, in the end, many people abandon their treatments and all the efficacy that could be achieved is lost.”
For this reason, he said that as a trend for improvement, it is important to review the patient’s journey, phase 4 studies, for example, “patients begin to show signs years before, which if they are detected early, we can talk about prevention , and if they later need treatment, adequate adherence is achieved”. He added that it’s not about looking at one small piece of health, but the whole journey.
Where is drug science headed?
Glaser explains that there are really few common ailments today that are not covered by a drug that already exists on the market. “The medicines accessible to the majority of the population have already been discovered”, but today the focus is on individualized therapies. “We are talking about very complex diseases and for a small sector of the population, we are talking, for example, about cancer treatments, rare diseases, nuclear medicine, cell therapy, gene therapy, with products that have to be activated, that have a half-life, with very specific for its effects, with very precise regulations”.
Another trend is to have large clinical trials. Previously, drug studies were carried out in the countries that led pharmacological research, places like Germany or Japan, but today we speak of multicenter studies, “in which a large number of countries participate, including Latin America. The last ten years have been thought and focused on how to bring more protocols and research to the region”.
He said that drugs have such a degree of complexity that they need to be tested in specific populations, “results from countries far from our societies are no longer enough, today studies in real-life people are required.”
A next aspect for innovation today is alliances. “Before, we only developed products internally, there were many pharmaceutical companies each doing their research separately, this was practically a secret until it reached a certain stage of approval.” Today alliances are valuable, universities or startups are sought, which often generate the initial development part, but do not have the competition for commercialization.
He also spoke about the digital trend in medicine. One of the things that emerged very recently is that pharmaceutical companies no longer talk only about medication, but also about the accompaniment and support part. “Today we have, for example, devices for monitoring diabetes treatments, so that patients are helped in the times and times that they should be taken, this significantly improves treatment.”
For Glaser, drug trends cannot be separated from a strong regulatory base that allows coverage in various countries, which is why, he said, studies are very important, “to talk with health authorities and coverage can be generated.” She said that in this sense there are also innovations, for example, with globalized health policies. For example, many health registries for Latin America request that it is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the European Medicines Agency (EMA), “this gives greater certainty to the countries and speeds up the procedures; many times there are even joint approvals and price control, to guarantee that the prices are correct according to each region or country”.