How do pharma companies Engage healthcare policy in Latin America?

_{Key Takeaways}

• Pharma influence in Latin America runs through seven principal channels, and evidence-based ones tend to do more of the work than lobbying-based ones.

• Evidence generation (real-world evidence, health economics, budget-impact models) is the most durable route since Health Technology Assessment (HTA) agencies such as Brazil’s CONITEC now shape reimbursement decisions.

• Coalition building is unusually powerful: rare disease alliances like ERCAL, and national federations such as FEBRARARAS, shape the agenda more than any single company voice.

• Public-private partnerships, notably Brazil’s Partnerships for Productive Development (PDPs), are a structured formal channel, though under scrutiny after a 2025 review by Brazil’s federal audit court.

• LATAM influence is relationship-driven and consensus-oriented, with long-term credibility outperforming formal lobbying.

Pharma companies influence health policy in Latin America through seven principal channels: evidence generation, stakeholder engagement, technical participation, capacity building, communications, coalition building, and government and payer engagement. While lobbying is often associated with influencing policies in some markets, policy influence in Latin America tends to place greater emphasis on evidence generation, consensus building, and multi-stakeholder engagement. Companies that miss this often mistake activity for influence.

_{What are the seven principal channels?}

Each channel plays a different role, but they are most effective when used together.

• Evidence generation. Real-world evidence (RWE), local burden-of-disease studies, health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), and budget-impact models. This is the most common route for shaping decisions at Brazil’s HTA agency CONITEC and at its equivalents in Mexico, Peru and Colombia.

• Stakeholder engagement. Relationship-building with medical societies, patient organizations, academic institutions, key opinion leaders and think tanks.

• Technical participation. The formal side of engagement: public consultations, regulatory consultations, HTA submissions, ministry working groups and advisory boards. This work is evidence-focused rather than political.

• Capacity building. Healthcare professional education, diagnostic training, disease awareness and workshops for patient organizations. Aimed at strengthening the system, not promoting a product.

• Communications. Earned media, awareness campaigns, thought leadership and digital work that shapes the broader policy conversation.

• Coalition building. Working through industry associations, rare disease alliances, and cancer or vaccination networks. Multi-stakeholder platforms travel further than single-company voices.

• Government and payer engagement. Direct interface with HTA agencies, payers, ministries of health, social security institutions, procurement bodies and state health secretariats.

_{Which channels tend to do the most work?}

Evidence generation and technical participation tend to carry the most weight. CONITEC has published over 1,080 evaluation reports since 2012, 836 of them on medicines. Every submission requires formal clinical, comparative and budget-impact analysis. Similar structures operate at CENETEC in Mexico, IETSI in Peru and IETS in Colombia.

According to a 2025 analysis published in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, the use of real-world evidence is growing across Latin America. Brazil, however, still lacks the formal frameworks seen in the United States and Europe, creating an opportunity for companies that invest in high-quality local evidence.

Coalition building often amplifies these evidence-based channels by bringing multiple credible voices around shared policy priorities.

Public consultations deserve particular attention. Across Latin America, regulatory agencies and HTA bodies regularly open formal consultation windows. These include CONITEC and ANVISA in Brazil, COFEPRIS in Mexico, ANMAT in Argentina, INVIMA in Colombia, and DIGEMID in Peru. They are among the most important structured channels through which companies, patient organizations, clinicians and academics contribute evidence to policy decisions. Missing a consultation window can mean losing an important opportunity to contribute evidence to policy discussions.

_{Why is coalition building so central in the region?}

Because a coalition’s credibility differs qualitatively from what any single company or association can carry. In a recent Speyside engagement, a global oncology company set out to raise the policy profile of advanced breast cancer in Brazil, where gaps between Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS) and private care drive uneven survival outcomes. Rather than a company-branded push, Speyside convened six leading breast cancer patient organizations into a facilitated working group in 2021. The outcome was a consensus position paper endorsed by all six, now used with federal and state authorities and carrying greater legitimacy than any single-company submission.

A parallel Speyside programme in Mexico used the same approach. A coalition spanning IMSS (the Mexican Institute of Social Security), the Ministry of Health, CENETEC, clinical societies and patient organizations was convened to help expand the country’s diabetes framework beyond glucose control to include cardiovascular and renal complications. Rare disease platforms operate in the same way, from ERCAL at the regional level to national federations such as FEBRARARAS, FECHER, FECOER and OMER.

At the regional level, Speyside has supported the Latin American Association of Responsible Self-Care (ILAR) since 2020 in building stakeholder coalitions across Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. During this partnership, ILAR has secured formal cooperation agreements with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the Foro Farmacéutico de las Américas, expanding its reach across the region.

_{Where do industry associations and PDPs fit?}

. Industry associations typically focus on coordination and policy dialogue rather than direct lobbying, as seen in some other markets. Interfarma (Brazil), AMIIF and CANIFARMA (Mexico), CAEME (Argentina) and AFIDRO (Colombia), all under FIFARMA, engage authorities on shared policy agendas rather than run campaign-style pressure.

Brazil’s Partnerships for Productive Development (PDPs)  are among the region's most structured public-private mechanisms. Under this model, private companies transfer technology to public institutions, including laboratories such as Butantan and Fiocruz, alongside arrangements for the public procurement of strategic products for the SUS. In May 2025, the Ministry of Health published preliminary results approving seven PDP proposals, five of which received final approval in July. The programme has nevertheless faced scrutiny from Brazil's federal audit court, which previously identified weaknesses in its governance and evaluation of technology transfer.

_{What is distinctive about influence in Latin America?}

Long-term trust, scientific credibility, local evidence and multi-stakeholder collaboration tend to outperform formal lobbying, in ways hard to replicate with a US or European playbook. The IFPMA-Interfarma-FIFARMA joint statement on the G20 Rio Declaration shows how regional coordination can scale into international engagement, but only when the underlying network has been built over years. Across all seven channels, the objective is to shape the policy environment and support evidence-informed decisions, not to promote a specific product.

_{What trends are shaping healthcare policy engagement in Latin America?}

• Increasing HTA sophistication across CONITEC, CENETEC, IETSI and IETS.

• Greater use of local real-world evidence, with formal RWE frameworks in development.

• More transparency requirements around patient-organization funding.

• Growing weight of coalition-based engagement over single-company advocacy.

• Rising expectations that evidence generation precedes regulatory and reimbursement decisions.

Together, these trends suggest that policy engagement in Latin America is becoming more evidence-driven, collaborative and transparent, placing greater value on long-term scientific credibility than on short-term advocacy.

_{Key acronyms and organizations}

_{Regulatory agencies}

• ANVISA – Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária (Brazil).

• ANMAT – Administración Nacional de Medicamentos, Alimentos y Tecnología Médica (Argentina).

• COFEPRIS – Comisión Federal para la Protección contra Riesgos Sanitarios (Mexico).

• DIGEMID – Dirección General de Medicamentos, Insumos y Drogas (Peru).

• INVIMA – Instituto Nacional de Vigilancia de Medicamentos y Alimentos (Colombia).

_{Health Technology Assessment bodies}

• CENETEC – Centro Nacional de Excelencia Tecnológica en Salud (Mexico).

• CONITEC – Comissão Nacional de Incorporação de Tecnologias no SUS (Brazil).

• IETS – Instituto de Evaluación Tecnológica en Salud (Colombia).

• IETSI – Instituto de Evaluación de Tecnologías en Salud e Investigación (Peru).

_{Health systems and other institutions}

• IMSS – Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (Mexico’s social security institute).

• PDP – Parcerias para o Desenvolvimento Produtivo (Partnerships for Productive Development, Brazil).

• SUS – Sistema Único de Saúde (Brazil’s Unified Health System).

• TCU – Tribunal de Contas da União (Brazil’s Federal Court of Accounts).

_{Technical terms}

• HEOR – Health Economics and Outcomes Research.

• HTA – Health Technology Assessment.

• RWE – Real-World Evidence.

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