Members of IPAS Visited LIF

Two members of this international organization met with Directors and explored the facilities.

LIF’s Directors Jorge Stettler, Guillermo Cleti and Carlos Arques received Karen Padilla (Program Manager for IPAS Latin America) and Guillermo Ortíz (IPAS Advisor Physician).

They had a meeting where Leonardo Martínez (Subsecretary of Territorial Management of 1st and 2nd Level of Santa Fe´s Healthcare), Members of the Human Rights Secretary, CEMAFE*, Horacio Coutaz (LIF’s Trustee) and Roberto Ganin (LIF’s General Manager) also participated.

IPAS is an international organization focused on expanding access to safe abortion and contraceptive care, and to ending unsafe abortion.

“We are an international organization and work to promote the protection and respect the sexual and reproductive health as well as the women’s reproductive rights. We have a collaborative agreement with Santa Fe province to help and to give technical assistance to improve the abortion comprehensive care”, expressed Karen Padilla.

After meeting, the visitors could explore the different facilities.

*CEMAFE: Centro Médico Ambulatorio de Santa Fe (Outpatient Medical Center of Santa Fe)

LIF’s Directors Met with Ph.D. Dohyeong Kim from University of Texas in Dallas

He is a well-known researcher from Korea. Today, he works at the University of Texas. He met with Directors and explored the facilities.

 

LIF’s Board of Directors: Carlos Arques, Diego Bruno, Jorge Stettler and Guillermo Cleti; Horacio Coutaz, Trustee, and Roberto Ganin, General Manager welcomed Dohyeong Kim and had a meeting where they exchanged information about the public production of medicines, as well as the different researches that Kim has been making.

Dohyeong Kim specializes in administration, planning and public politics. He is Associate Professor at the University of Texas in Dallas. He has a Master´s degree in Public Administration and Planing, and a Doctorate in Urban Planning and Health Politics by the University of North Carolina.

After meeting, the visitor explored the facilities together with Roberto Ganin.

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.

LIF Is Already Providing Medicines for TB Treatments

Medicines for tuberculosis (TB) treatments were developed and produced in the new LIF’s area. Santa Fe is pioneer in this field and could solve the lack of medicines through their public production.

 
 
Few months after the inauguration of the new developed and production area, LIF has started producing medicines for tuberculosis (TB) treatments.

In the last two months, LIF has provided Santa Fe’s healthcare public system with 90.000 tablets of three drugs such as: Isoniazid 100 mg, Isoniazid 300 mg and Ethambutol 400 mg.

TB drugs are often provided by the National Health Ministry, but this activity was discontinued in the last months due to different issues in the last tender.

Santa Fe province could guarantee the access to the medicines for the patients through their public production.

“Today, LIF’s TB drugs production is a solution for Santa Fe province, but we will reach the national approval by ANMAT* and therefore we could have these drugs available for other provinces”, expressed Guillermo Cleti.

Rifampicin + Isoniazid (double combined tablet) and Rifampicin + Isoniazid + Pyrazinamide (triple combined tablet) are being processed by the typical stability studies. In view of this, the combined tablets will probably be available in the next year.

TB drugs production is an important progress for LIF, as well as an example of why it is necessary that the State has a tool like public production, and consequently gives a solution for the population so that they can access medicines.

*ANMAT: Administración Nacional de Medicamentos, Alimentos y Tecnología Médica. (National Regulatory Agency for medicines, food and medical devices).

Students of “Antonia María Verna" School Visited LIF

More than 100 students visited LIF. They received information about public production of medicines and explored the facilities.
During June, 101 students of 5th year of the “Antonia María Verna" school attended LIF. They received information about public production of medicines, quality control, financing and human resources management through different lectures.

 

This school has three different specialisations, such as: economy, natural sciences and human studies. After the lectures, they went around LIF’s facilities.

Health Staff Members from Reconquista Nodo Visited LIF

Health professionals and staff members of administration areas from different cities and towns of Reconquista Nodo participated in this activity, which included a lecture and a tour on the facilities.

Hospital directors, physicians, pharmacists, nurses and administrative employees arrived at LIF with the objective of knowing about public production of medicine, as well as exploring the different LIF’s areas.

Luciana Ramoa (Reconquista Nodo’s director) and Daniela Sponton (Coordinator of Medicines of Reconquista Nodo) led the delegation.

Intiyaco, Tartagal, Vera, Romang, Las Tostas, Florencia, Reconquista, Villa Ocampo, Avellaneda and Arrollo Ceibal were the places from where they arrived.

First, LIF’s Board of Directors welcomed the visitors and then LIF’s Communication Area led the different activities.

“We promote an important politics through which we want to open LIF to the community and everyone can know how LIF produces and controls its medicines”, expressed Guillermo Cleti (LIF’s Director)

Reconquista Nodo (Region No. 1)

The Region No. 1 has its Nodo in Reconquista city. It is located in the Northeast of Santa Fe province. It limits with Chaco province (North); with Corrientes province (East); with Region No. 2 (West) and with Region No. 3 (South).

The Region includes the departments: General Obligado, San Javier and Vera.

Former Deputy Ricardo Dorato Visited LIF

Ricardo Dorato was the author of an essential law to start to organize LIF. Thirty years after its enforcement, he explored the facilities and met with directors.

In 1987, Ricardo Dorato was a provincial Deputy who presented a law project in the Lower House of Provincial Congress. This project proposed to create the Laboratorio Productor de Fármacos Medicinales (LPFM) into the zone of influence of the Health Ministry.

While it is true that LIF has existed and operated since 1947, its activity hasn’t satisfied the Health Ministry’s demands.

Public institutions like LIF had been abandoned until 1983 after seven years (1976 - 1983) of military dictatorship where a lot state’s capacities were reduced to the minimum. Due to this, private production of consumer goods and services for the population were the main objectives.

The new law (Dorato’s law) gave the legal framework to improve LIF’s capacities and to promote more medicines production after the restoration of the democracy.

Producing medicines to provide to hospitals, with a low cost, without intermediaries and marketing were the main objectives in the Law N° 10.069, as well as the incorporation of more technology to increase LIF’s production volume and guarantee the quality of its medicines.

LIF’s Board of Directors: Diego Bruno, Jorge Stettler, Guillermo Cleti and Carlos Arques; Horacio Coutaz (Trustee) and Roberto Ganin (General Manager) received Ricardo Dorato and his son Sandro.

First, the visitors met with LIF’s Board of Directors and then they explored LIF’s facilities.