Production of Morphine

    LIF will produce morphine tablets for Santa Fe province.

    Morphine is an opioid analgesic, which it is the prototype and the most important drug used in the treatment of cancer pain. 
    Pain is a very frequent problem in patients with cancer, with a prevalence of 90%. 
    Through correct pharmacologic treatment the pain can be relieved. 
    Also, Instituto Nacional de Cáncer and the Programa Nacional de Producción Pública de Medicamentos would be interested in delivering LIF Morphine across the country. 
    LIF will start the presentation at Administración Nacional de Medicamentos, Alimentos y Tecnología Médica (ANMAT) to reach the Morphine national certificate. 

LIF Morphine in Santa Fe 

    In 2005, LIF produced only one batch of Morphine 10 mg and 20 mg tablets, which the Health Ministry delivered at the public hospitals. This production was a first test to give oral treatment to the patients with cancer. 
    Also, LIF produced Morphine 1% injections but since 2011 the Health Ministry of Santa Fe has bought this medicine through PNUD (Programa de las Naciones Unidas en Desarrollo).

Health and safety at work

On March 13th, the members of the Committee on safety and health at work attended the term meeting that took place at LIF headquarters.

This Committee is a bipartite body created in 2012 by a provincial law where it comprises full members made up of LIF’s Directory and of employers' organisations (UPCN and ATE).

The Committee has plenary meetings once a month and works in the preparation, the implementation and the evaluation of activities in the fields of safety and health at work.

In the meeting, the Annual Prevention Plan 2012 (APP) was analysed.

APP is a document in which the problems are identified to establish priorities and PREVENTION strategies. LIF was represented by Carlos Arques, Diego Bruno, Daniel Salomón, Guillermo Cleti and Hugo Minatti. Employers’ organisations were represented by Lorena Amat and Claudio Mansilla (UPCN) and Hugo Ocampo (ATE). Engineer Daniel Hess (Advisor) attended the meeting as well.

LIF deliver 94% of the drugs in Santa Fe

                                         

 For seven decades, LIF has had a rich history in medicines production. 

In 1947, LIF started their activities producing medicines for some hospital pharmacies in Santa Fe city and became a reference in public medicines production across the years.

Thus at present LIF has an important participation in Santa Fe.
In the last five years, LIF produced and delivered 334 million drug units for primary healthcare in this province, which means 94% of the drug units used by the provincial government for primary healthcare. 

Once this primary objective was reached, LIF also produced and delivered medicines to other provinces and cities. Bahía Blanca and Mar del Plata (Buenos Aires province), Concordia (Entre Ríos province), Misiones, Río Negro and the Health Ministry of the Nation were some places where LIF delivered medicines through bids or direct purchase order.

This outstanding growth in medicines production was possible through an important and continual investment in machinery, equipment and building. 

Since 2008, Santa Fe’s Government investment reached about US$ 1.5 million.
Nowadays, LIF research and develop different medicines for chronic diseases as diabetes, hypertension, pulmonary disorder and pain treatment with a considerably impact on the economic budget in health in Santa Fe and other places.

LIF will deliver antibiotics to the National Health Ministry

LIF will provide 240.000 tablets of Amoxicillin 500 mg to the National Health Ministry.

LIF had already participated in the latest bid Nº 55/12 announced by Health Ministry to buy different medicines. On this occasion, Santa Fe’s Laboratory had the best price for this Beta-lactam tablet.

This medication will be used by Health Ministry to attend to opportunistic infections.These are infections caused by opportunistic pathogens, such as bacterial infections that usually do not cause disease in a healthy host, one with a healthy immune system.

Meeting at Laboratorio de Hemoderivados

LIF SE’s Directors, Carlos Arques, Guillermo Cleti and the General Manager Roberto Ganin, visited the Laboratorio de Hemoderivados (LH), in which Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC) has full ownership.

LH are specialists in medicines production through plasma derivatives (products manufactured from human plasma by plasma fractionation techniques).

Also, LH produces injection medicines apart from non-plasma derivatives.
THE Directors met with the main authorities Catalina Massa (Executive Director), Ada María Sisti (Technical Director), Cristian Moya (Production Manager) and Daniel Sabena (Marketing Manager).

LIF’s staff members worked on an agreement between LIF and LH to produce some of these injections for the Health Public System of Santa Fe.

LIF will produce metformin to REMEDIAR

LIF will produce eight million tablets of Metformin 500 mg to increase the critical stock of the REMEDIAR Program of the National Health Ministry.

The Program couldn’t take the offer in the last bid announced to buy different medicines because of the expensive price the dealer offered. 

Thus, LIF will deliver four million tablets in March and the rest in May 2013.
Metformin is an oral antidiabetic drug. It is the first-line drug of choice for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, in particular, in overweight and obese people and those with normal kidney function.

AGREEMENT BETWEEN LIF AND IAPOS

Last week an agreement of “Mutual collaboration and assistance” was signed between LIF and IAPOS (Santa Fe’s social health insurance for civil servants).

The main objective is to deliver high-quality medicine at affordable prices for IAPOS and to give mutual assistance to improve healthcare, guaranteeing the efficiency and making the best use of the resources.


Background of LIF and IAPOS

In 2008, the Health Ministry of Santa Fe signed an agreement of mutual collaboration with IAPOS and Pharmacist’s College to carry out actions related to birth control, to prevent unwanted pregnancies and to reduce maternal death.

In 2009, the Health Ministry of Santa Fe started the provision of LIF contraceptives to women who were sexually active within the public health system and IAPOS coverage.
From May 2009 to date LIF has delivered 34,557 contraceptive cycles to IAPOS and 1,187,056 contraceptive cycles to the Health Ministry of Santa Fe to use in the public health system.