Adolfo Rubinstein: "When turbulence passes, I think the current Ministry of Health will become a ministry again"

As part of a new edition of Forbes Summit Health Care Argentina, a debate took place Wednesday, May 8, with the aim of bringing together businessmen, public officials, experts of the pharmaceutical industry, doctors and scientific researchers for a global, transdisciplinary and in-depth vision of the main challenges of the health industry. in Argentina.

What is the panorama of the health industry in general? What are your most pressing challenges and opportunities? Where does precision medicine go? What is the status of biosimilar drugs against mental disorders and neurodevelopment? Health care organized by the magazine Forbes Argentina at the Sheraton Hotel in the city of Buenos Aires.

In this context, the first to go on stage was Adolfo Rubinstein, Secretary of the Government of the Nation's Health, who ushered in the summit and participated in a public interview led by Alex Milberg, publisher of Forbes Argentinaand Daniela Blanco, Director of Trends Infobae rethink the outstanding challenges of the health sector in the country and the current scenario of the Ministry of Health.

Before a first consultation on the change of secretariat ministry: "It was a decision made at a very special moment.The goal was to concentrate the structure on less political leaders.In reality, there was no change of substance neither in the management, nor in the budget, nor in the characteristics nor the independence of the management, I believe that when the turbulence is over, this decision will be reversed and I think that Health will be the ministry again. It seems to me that this is something that will happen because it has technical and managerial, planning and strategic specificities that deserve to be a department ".

On the other hand, Rubinstein He focused on what he sees as the biggest public health problem in Argentina, childhood obesity, whose incidence has increased in recent decades: According to the second national survey on nutrition and health to be published soon, more than 40% of children and adolescents are overweight and obese. According to data from the 4th National Survey of Risk Factors, which is growing among the adult population, these values ​​reach 66% of the population.

"It was the first to have direct and objective measures, two-thirds of the Argentinian adult population are overweight and obese, and the worst is that there is still the perception that obesity is a decision that is badociated to companies that have wealth and they eat a lot, quite the contrary Obesity is a problem of poverty. And all chronic diseases are concentrated more and more in the poorest quintile. Of 5 malnourished children, 4 of them are overweight and obese and only one is malnourished. The impact of this phenomenon on chronic diseases is serious, in addition to what it implies in terms of productive development and the economic and social development capacity of a country, "said Rubinstein.

Emphasis on the prevention and control of chronic diseases is a focus of public service management, as these types of diseases, including childhood obesity (and other diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes or chronic lung diseases), produce more than 70% of deaths in the country. Therefore, with regard to overweight and obesity in children, a cross-sectoral strategy is used to prevent it.

"We are very close to what we will call the Plan for Healthy Eating for Children (ASI Plan), an interministerial and intersectoral strategy led by the Government Secretariat for Health, which concerns social development, education, culture, science and culture, technology, agribusiness and production and includes other actors such as the food industry.This plan has several components, including education, in this sense, for example, we signed the guidelines for school environments with the Ministry of Education.Healthy, to turn obesogenic environments into evidence-based health recommendations, "said the specialist.

But there will also be other components, such as working with Production to incorporate healthy products at Core Prices or improving access to fresh produce with greater availability and affordability. as part of strategies such as Mercado en tu Barrio.

Access to medicines

Improving access to medicines is another of the management goals of the holder of the national health portfolio, which has been promoted since last year by the strategy of joint purchase of high-priced drugs. The consolidated purchasing mechanism promotes the strengthening of public actors to negotiate the acquisition of high-cost supplies, which generates savings facilitating the extension of coverage and the purchase of difficult drugs gain.

One of the recent agreements is that of the Ministry of Health and Social Development, which, through its Secretary of the Health Government, has signed an agreement with representatives of Biogen Laboratory, the sole producer of the drug Nusinersen ( Spinraza®), which will allow more than twice as many patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SOUL) access this treatment.

"With drug policies and coverage of new technologies, we have implemented innovative centralized purchasing projects in which the State Secretariat for Health, in collaboration with others. public actors, makes purchases much more transparent and allows substantial savings, thus generating a significant change Rubinstein added: "In addition, I am reasonably optimistic with the rapid establishment of the National Agency for Technology Assessment. of health (AGNET) and I am convinced that it will be possible to move forward and define more rationally and to whom it will subsidize and at what prices ".

Finally, he recalled that, in accordance with the worldwide recognized universal coverage strategy, he aimed to "extend the effective coverage, to provide the necessary health services to the whole of the population with maximum financial protection, necessarily guaranteeing quality, equity or efficiency.We must progress towards an effective coverage with the resources we have, to fill the gaps.We have progressed and 22 of the 24 provinces have agreed on a formal framework for the implementation of this effective coverage, we are conducting pilot projects in defined areas where we are implementing the territorial coverage strategy with family health teams, digital coverage with electronic medical records and priority care lines focused on chronic diseases, "said the state secretary for health.

The first panel inaugurated a chiaroscuro debate on the theme "Panorama of the health industry: challenges and opportunities"Over there, the perspective of pharmaceutical companies pushing innovation in accessibility was coupled with the quality and the intelligence, the sharpness of the main link: the patients and the role of science that bets more and more money to continue to investigate, among the lucid and attentive Rodrigo Fernández, vice president of Astellas for Latin America, Juan Ignacio Diddi, Managing Director of Bristol-Myers Squibb Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile and Peru), Fernando Goldbaum, scientific director of Inmunova, and María Alejandra Iglesias, President of the Civil Association Support.

About mental disorders and neurodevelopment, they worked Víctor Ruggieri, Executive Medical Advisor of SAMIC Pediatric Hospital "Prof. Dr. Juan P. Garrahan", and Marcelo Cetkovich, Medical Director of the Institute of Cognitive Neurology and Psychiatry (INECO).

Among the speakers, it was also possible to listen Matías Chacón, president of the Argentine Association of Clinical Oncology, which referred to personalized treatments, Darío Galmarini, Oncology consultant physician for Bayer Cono Sur and other actors involved in different aspects of precision medicine, such as Nicolás Kirchuk, executive director and co-founder of Biomakers, and Liliana Kuharo, responsible for quality badurance and regulatory affairs at Andreani.

During the day, they also participated Patricia Aprea, Director of ANMAT's Directorate for the Evaluation and Control of Biologics and Radiopharmaceuticals, who discussed the problem of biosimilars (similarities and differences), accompanied at the table by Nicolás Vaquer, managing director of the Pfizer region in Argentina, and Luciana Escati Peñaloza, president of Fundación Más Vida (FMV).