Read the Conversation
Conversation highlights:
- Mexico's life sciences sector has remained resilient through major political transitions and the pandemic, emerging dynamic and strong despite ongoing challenges in supply chains and infrastructure investment.
- Cofepris (Comisión Federal para la Protección contra Riesgos Sanitarios) reform represents the top priority, as the regulatory authority impacts 10-14% of Mexico's GDP and requires capacity building, transparency improvements, and backlog resolution.
- Mexico must position itself as an innovation facilitator through faster clinical trial approvals and streamlined pathways for new technologies to enter the government purchasing catalog.
- Standardization with North American markets could transform Mexico from a manufacturing base dependent on Asian suppliers into an export platform serving the US and Canadian markets.
- Medical tourism presents enormous untapped potential, leveraging Mexico's geographic advantages and cost efficiencies while establishing quality standards for international patients.
- The private healthcare sector has grown to match the public sector in value as out-of-pocket spending increased from 38% to 52%, creating opportunities to serve broader economic segments through improved integration and efficiency.
EF: Looking back over the past decade and forward to 2030, what are the two greatest achievements of Mexico's life sciences sector, and what should be the focus for the next four years?
PEDJ: The major achievement has been keeping this sector alive and thriving in a country that has experienced profound changes. We've navigated two significant transitions: the change of administration from Andrés Manuel López Obrador to Claudia Sheinbaum, which implemented major health system reforms, and the global pandemic that affected everyone worldwide. Today, we have a life sciences industry that is alive and well. It has changed some things, not necessarily for the better, while others have improved. We can see there's still a need for time and many additional changes in the public health sector to stabilize important areas that suffered from these profound changes and created instability in medication supply, investment in new infrastructure, and maintenance of current infrastructure. The focus moving forward should be on strengthening the system as a whole, considering both public and private sectors. We have a health system and life sciences industry that is alive, very dynamic, and very strong, but the best is yet to come. We need to implement changes in public policy to take this industry to its potential.
EF: What initiatives are at the top of your agenda for 2026?
PEDJ: There are five critical areas we need to focus on to close the gaps in healthcare access and help this industry reach its potential. Number one is our regulatory authority, Cofepris. We need to jumpstart this institution that touches 10 to 14% of our country's GDP. We must resolve the delayed backlog that has accumulated and help Cofepris change how they operate to have much more capacity, consistency, and transparency in processing requirements. Cofepris can be a great enabler or a great inhibitor for both healthcare access and economic development. Number two, Mexico must be a facilitator and an open door for innovation. This involves the Consejo de Salubridad General and requires being open to new technologies, patented products, and their transition to generic versions when patents expire. We need to include these technologies in the government's purchasing catalog and ensure medical teams understand these technologies and their impact. Both Cofepris and the Consejo de Salubridad General are major players in attracting clinical research protocols. If we were more competitive and quicker to authorize studies, we could attract much more investment into Mexico and help institutions serve patients who aren't gaining access to care. Number three is strengthening our pharmaceutical and medical devices industries to access larger markets through North American standardization. Mexico has a strong manufacturing base, but with better standardization, innovation could be implemented faster, and our manufacturing base could become a platform for exporting to the US instead of depending on India, China, and other Eastern countries for APIs and critical components. Number four is capitalizing on medical tourism. Mexico has a vocation as a manufacturing center and tourism destination. Medical tourism should leverage our efficiencies, lower access times, and lower costs versus the US and Canada, but we need quality standards that give patients certainty about medical services, installations, hospitals, clinics, and doctors. This opportunity extends beyond border cities to main tourist areas. Finally, (point five) we're working with legislators in both the House of Representatives and Senate to advance health initiatives providing more certainty for cancer patients, rare disease patients, and focusing on precision medicine versus current diagnostic and treatment methods, plus digital health legislation.
EF: As CCE celebrates 50 years and you serve as an ambassador for life sciences to private investors in Mexico, why is a dollar invested in life sciences better than invested anywhere else?
PEDJ: Investing in health is good business, and I mention this frequently in my speeches and health events. First, investing in health technology and prevention brings big investments, creates high-paying formal jobs, and builds an innovation ecosystem where people, communities, patients, and institutions gain access to new technology. Like other high-technology sectors, the whole ecosystem benefits. But it's also good business to be mindful of health because patients who are healthy, a population that is healthy, represent a more competitive nation. These are people with a better quality of life. Investing in health is good business both economically and for wellness and quality of life. It's undoubtedly one of those industries where everybody wins when it's properly tended to, and public policy promoting this is implemented correctly. Let me add one important point about the current situation. In the last eight years, out-of-pocket spending has increased from 38% to close to 52%, depending on how it's measured. The private sector has become equal in size to the public sector in value. There are enormous opportunities, but also big responsibilities for the private sector. We need to become more efficient and better integrated to provide a seamless patient journey that is more proactive and effective. We should become much more cost-efficient so we can start caring for different economic levels that today only see solutions in the public sector. If we create this private health subsystem that is better integrated and more operationally efficient, we should deliver value propositions benefiting other layers of the economy, including lower economic population segments.
