The Health Minister Drisun visited Zelltek SA

     Dr. Mario Drisun (Health Minister of Santa Fe and Chairman of LIF’s Executive Committee) together with Dr. Javier Lottersberg (Dean of Biochemistry and Biological Sciences School - UNL), visited Zelltek SA.
     Rogelio Pujol (Sales Manager) and Rubén Zurbriggen (Institutional Relations) by Zelltek welcomed the visitors.
     Miguel González (Health Secretary), Elvia Gómez (Director of Biochemistry and Pharmacy - Health Ministry), Guillermo Cleti (LIF’s Director) and Carlos Arques (LIF’s Director) also participated in the meeting.
     Zelltek SA produces active biopharmaceutical ingredients in a production site located at the Parque Tecnológico Litoral Centro (Santa Fe).
     In August 2013, LIF and Zelltek signed an agreement of “Mutual collaboration and assistance”.
     Due to this agreement, LIF will be able to provide biogenerics such as Erythropoietin, Interferon and Filgrastim. And, in this way, add a new products line in its portfolio, which so far only includes medicines for primary healthcare.

Meeting of Public Laboratories at the National Health Ministry

     The activity took place at the “Minister Oñativia Room” where different public laboratories of medicines from all the country, attended.
     Carlos Arques, Diego Bruno and Guillermo Cleti, (LIF’s Directors) have participated in a meeting at the National Health Ministry (NHM).
     The activity took place at the “Minister Oñativia Room” where different public laboratories of medicines from all the country, attended.
     Dr. Daniel Gollan (Community Health Secretary - NHM) led the meeting.
     Dr. Jorge Zarzur (Executive Director of the National Program of State Production of Medicines, Vaccines and Medical Devices) also participated.
     The attendees analyzed the current production capacity of all the public laboratories and evaluated different financing tools to improve the production volumes of each laboratory.
     Finally, they talked about the specialization of each of the laboratories which is expected to be more efficient in the future.

     Members of Laboratorios Puntanos (San Luis); Laboratorio de Hemoderivados (UNC - Córdoba); Laboratorio de Especialidades Medicinales (LEM de Rosario); Productora Zonal de Medicamentos (Prozome - Río Negro); Laformed (Formosa); LEMIS (Misiones); Instituto Biológico Tomás Perón (La Plata); Lapromed (Mendoza) and Laboratorio del Chaco were presents in this meeting.

Meeting at India's Embassy

     

     Guillermo Cleti, LIF’s Director, had a meeting at India’s Embassy in Argentina.
     Amarendra Khatua (India’s Ambassador); Sudhanshu Pandey (Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce - Ministry of Commerce & Industry), P.V. Appaji (Pharmexcil’s General Director)* and Juan Müller (LEM’s Director)** participated in the meeting which took place at India’s Embassy in Buenos Aires.

     Guillermo Cleti gave information about the different API’s that LIF uses to produce medicines. A lot of them are produced by Indian laboratories.
     “We would like to import some API’s directly from India. Today LIF buys these raw materials in the local market. We want to improve our production costs”, said Guillermo Cleti.
     Also, Guillermo Cleti talked about the project for research, development and production of medicines for patients with tuberculosis diseases.
     “Indian laboratories make a lot of these raw materials. In the future, LIF is going to use a lot of them. This contact with Indian laboratories will be very useful when we need to develop our formulas”, said Cleti.
     P.V. Appagy and Sudhanshu Pandey asked Cleti about the LIF’s production of Orphan drugs. He gave information about: the production of ephedrine tablets for only one child with Myasthenia gravis and Hypertonic Saline to use in patients with Cystic Fibrosis.
     Production of biogenerics was another topic in the agenda.

Link with India.
     On February, 2014, Guillermo Cleti travelled to India as one of the members of the Santa Fe Government’s Mission.He had a schedule of meetings with different Indian companies, mainly medicines manufactures and APIs manufacturers.


*Pharmexcil: Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India.
API’s: Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient.
**LEM SE: Laboratorio de Especialidades Medicinales, Sociedad del Estado. It is the Rosario’s city hall public laboratory.

Lecture at Lawyers’ College in Rosario

     

     Guillermo Cleti, LIF’s Director, participated in a lecture about medicines in Rosario.
     The meeting took place at the Lawyers’ College headquarters on August 1st.
     The main topics were: Patient rights to access to medicines; Patient safety against illegitimate medicines; drugs coverage and Public production of medicines.
     Firstly, Guillermo Cleti gave information about the public production of medicines in Argentina and Santa Fe province. Then, he talked about LIF’s history, legal framework and production of orphan drugs.
     Dra. Viviana Denk, Dr. Raúl Andrés Lassizuk, Dr. Carina Mazzeo and Dr. Julia Canet were other participants in the meeting.
     The activity was organized by Instituto de Derecho de la Salud y Bioética.