E. Science, technology and innovation policy recommendations to strengthen health industries

In Mexico, meanwhile, the company Avimex was participating in the development of a vaccine created by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the University of Texas that was in phase 1.

At the regional level, the production of locally developed vaccines is limited to Cuba and Brazil (Instituto Butantan). The Chinese Sinovac vaccine and the Anglo-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine are also being produced in Brazil. In Argentina, the Richmond Laboratory is producing the Russian Sputnik vaccine and the company mAbxience is producing the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is being packaged in Mexico by the Lamont Laboratory. Lastly, the company Drugmex is producing the Chinese Convidecia vaccine in Mexico.

The challenge that the arrival of COVID-19 has posed for Latin American and Caribbean countries has given rise to a reconsideration of the strategic choices that many of them have made since the mid-1990s. Since then, there has been a trend to rely on external supplies as a preferred means of procuring medications and medical devices. The pandemic has led to the clear establishment of a new priority of strengthening national and regional capacities in health industries, with the unanimous approval of the member States of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in September 2021 of the Plan for self-sufficiency in health matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, developed and proposed by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (2021).

Progress towards achieving this goal of self-sufficiency in health will require major efforts at the national and regional levels. This relates to various features of the relevant industries, as mentioned above: (i) the importance of science, technology and innovation to the performance of this industry and the existing differences in available capacities in this area between countries in the region and more advanced countries; (ii) the cumulative nature of developing scientific, technological and productive knowledge, which requires consistent and long-term policy initiatives; (iii) the variety of public and private actors and knowledge institutions that interact with different objectives, which entails a continuous alignment effort; and (iv) the existence of significant economies of scale in production, which emphasizes the importance of ongoing efforts to broaden access to regional markets in order to be more competitive with large global producers.

In order to further develop innovation systems linked to health industries that contribute to national resilience in the face of situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, it will thus be essential to combine national political efforts with collaborative initiatives at the regional level.

There is scope for making progress in implementing national innovation policies in the health industry. To that end, the following are proposed: (i) increasing public support for R&D activities; (ii) broadening the scale and timeframes of the projects undertaken; (iii) strengthening public, private or university centres of excellence; (iv) promoting connections between actors in the innovation system of the health industries; (v) improving the patenting, registration and approval processes for products and procedures; and (vi) monitoring procurement in the innovation process in the health industries.

On the other hand, the following means of strengthening regional collaboration are proposed: (i) developing innovation programmes aimed at resolving regional problems or challenges and carried out by multinational regional consortiums; (ii) boosting the educational integration process and the exchange of students and researchers; (iii) expanding and formalizing the mutual recognition of registration of medications; (iv) complementing existing capacities in countries with a regional platform for clinical trials, with the aim of strengthening shared and recognized regulatory standards; (v) regulating procurement strategies by creating a supplier database that ensures that standards are met in terms of quality, security and timeliness of supply, and suitable pricing; and (vi) strengthening regional mechanisms for the joint procurement of medications and medical devices in health emergency situations.