LIF Has Started to Provide Opioids to the National Government Again

Methadone and morphine for different hospitals around Argentina. Palliative care and public production of medicines: two firm state policies in Santa Fe province.

LIF provided a first amount of opioids to the National Government through an agreement with Instituto Nacional de Cáncer* (INC).

INC will distribute these medicines around the country in different hospitals with palliative care service.

Methadone 5 mg (150.000 tablets) and morphine 10 mg (1.150.000 tablets) were the amounts delivered by LIF. Before the end of the year, LIF must provide a similar quantity of these two drugs to complete the agreement.

It is important to highlight that this LIF’s production has a price between 30% and 50% of the cheaper one of the pharmaceutical market, and due to this, Santa Fe province contributes through this firm state policy to the national policies for fighting cancer.

The Banco Nacional de Drogas Oncológicas is the place where INC storages the medicines. Then, from there the drugs will be delivered to the different hospitals around the country.

This is the second stage of the Pilot Program to provide drugs for pain treatment in patients with active, progressive and advanced diseases.

The first stage was between 2014 and 2016. In that moment, LIF provided directly more than one million tablets (methadone and morphine) in different hospitals in Argentina.

*Instituto Nacional de Cáncer (INC): National Institute of Cancer.