Access to public information is a fundamental right in Brazil and one that has historically been taken seriously. Detailed import data is used by a variety of institutions such as private companies, public entities, associations, the press, researchers, attorneys as well as governments who monitor industry performance and combat contraband products and dumping.

Global Health Intelligence (GHI) uses detailed trade data (in conjunction with other sources) to assess the state of healthcare markets and report on the impact of macro-health drivers. Said information is particularly useful when monitoring and reporting on the state of the COVID pandemic.

For example, GHI is able to ascertain with over 95% certainty that the market for surgical products dropped by 68% in 2020 at the start of the COVID pandemic and later rebounded to surpass pre-pandemic levels in certain categories in 2021.

This type of analysis is done individually for over 400 product categories[1], enabling stakeholders to gain visibility on the situation at hand and determine a proper course of action moving forward. Without this information, stakeholders are operating blind.

In Brazil, Receita Federal published detailed data through the SISCORI system — one of the most efficient and well-run government trade platforms in Latin America. Overall, the SISCORI accomplished two critical and challenging missions:

1. Providing access to accurate and timely detailed trade data
2. Offering assurance of confidentiality of private data.

For over 15 years, the SISCORI system was a praised system across the region — until it was shut down.  

Certain immoral companies and individuals found ways to extract additional information from the SISCORI platform, tagging the data with private personal identifiers, such as the name of the importer, the name of the supplier and the tax ID. This practice turned into full-on ventures as companies acquired massive amounts of data, including the personal identifiers, to create business profiles (similar to credit reports and partnering studies).  In an effort to crack down on these illicit activities, Receita Federal shut down the SISCORI system without notice on December 17, 2021.  But SISCORI was not the source of the problem: the companies and persons who abused the system and acted immorally by revealing personal information are.  These are the true culprits and where the sanctions should be directed.

With the SISCORI system down, detailed trade data should no longer be available. But if you search hard enough, you will find companies who still broker this information, including the personal identifiers. SISCORI was a scapegoat in a failed attempt to crack down on illicit activities.

The perverse effect of the SISCORI shutdown is multifaceted:

• On one hand, there will be limited access to trade data across industries. Specifically, the healthcare system will have less visibility on the economic impact of macro-drivers, including the pandemic we are still living through. There will be fewer facts on which to make decisions; and measuring the outcome of decisions will be that much harder, if not impossible. If it seems like we are going backwards instead of forwards in terms of data transparency, it is because we are.
• By restricting access to SISCORI, the alternative backdoor channels to obtain information become even more valuable, further enticing immoral persons and businesses to explore other ventures.

Receita Federal plans to reestablish access to SISCORI at some point in the future, with no set date or commitment on how the data will be presented.

Until the situation is resolved, GHI continues to count on years of historical data used for detailed analysis and is also used as the foundation for current monitoring. But until the system is restored, the healthcare sector will operate blind and health outcomes will likely suffer.

GHI maintains an active engagement with key stakeholders to find ways to release detailed import data in the future. If you would like to join our efforts, or to find out more about this situation, please contact us.

[1] Such as stents, pacemakers, cardiovascular devices, neurology products, artificial hips & knees, implants, diagnostic and other hospital equipment and devices.

Prostheses — the Best-Known Models

External prostheses of upper and lower limbs are the 3D models that most people know about. Yet there are other prostheses that have gained ground as replacements for titanium ones, such as jaw and hip implants. However, prostheses are neither the only nor the most innovative prints developed by medicine in recent years. Surgical tools, dental devices, pharmaceutical medicines, and medical equipment are all on the list.

More Tools for Surgeons

3D models have become the surgeon’s allies. The manufacture of parts tailored to patients’ specific needs, used during diagnosis prior to complex operations, have been of great use when it comes to providing greater clarity to the physician, and better safety to patients. This has led to a reduction in risks during the procedure and less time in the operating room by having information prior to the operation.

But in addition to cases in which doctors are working with actual patients, 3D printing has entered the realm of medical training, helping students and residents to carry out their practices in difficult or high-risk cases, performing procedures on the heart or brain — organs requiring a great deal of precision and care when it comes to their treatment.

Tissue Engineering: The 3D Revolution

Tissue engineering is the specialty that deals with developing tissues or organs in the laboratory as replacements or to treat diseases. Several studies have shown that 3D printing is capable of making tissues and skin. The technology consists of developing a digital model printed in layers with a mixture composed of biomaterials and live cells. The resulting printed structure, or model, goes through an incubation and cell-proliferation stage that will end up producing a new tissue.

Bioprinting is in the research and development stage in Latin America, and although there are several countries in which its application has begun to be implemented, Mexico is recognized as a knowledge producer in the field.

A Crucial Resource During a Pandemic

Recent projections from Market Research Future indicate that globally, the 3D printing market will grow from a value of US$13.6 billion in 2020 to reach US$35.3 billion by 2027, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.6% during this period. In addition, BCC Research forecasts that the global market for 3D printed medical devices will grow from US$1.7 billion in 2021 to US$4.9 billion by 2026, growing with a powerful CAGR of 24.5% during this period.

During COVID peaks, and thanks to previous developments, the health sector has seen a massive boost in production, and 3D printing—or additive technology—has presented itself as the fast solution for large-scale medical device production. Products such as nasal swabs, ventilator components, and personal protective equipment, which were in high demand at the beginning of the pandemic, were manufactured in record time and with the same functionality as those produced in traditional factories.

The advances that additive technology has brought with it are undeniable: greater speed, specificity, and lower costs. Whether we are facing a new paradigm of device manufacturing, only time will tell. What we can say is that 3D printing is going through a growth stage and, although there is a long way to go, various initiatives have now been generated, promoted by businesses, research centers, and governments to develop the industry and work on gaps in the law and knowledge to provide sustainable solutions.

The pandemic has given it a huge boost, and its speed of response, combined with its adaptability, have shown that it is a market with a great deal of potential in the health industry, which adds value and is complemented by the needs of today’s medicine.

Next Steps

Contact us to find out more how we can help you understand healthcare market shifts in Latin America via custom research or help you with opportunity benchmarking, competitive intelligence, market sizing and discovering sales opportunities through our databases, which feature key strategic data on Latin America’s medical equipment/devices market that companies can leverage to boost sales and strengthen strategic planning.

However, there is generally a significant size difference between public and private hospitals in Latin America, and that is likely to be reflected in the base installed equipment counts covered by HospiRank. As such, GHI decided to create a ranking solely for private hospitals in Latin America, covering 4 key categories:

• Best Equipped for Hosting Patients
• Highest Count of Basic Surgical Equipment
• Best-Equipped Hospitals for Advanced Diagnostic Imaging
• Best-Equipped Hospitals for High-Risk Patients

Towards the end of Q4 2021, GHI shared the results of its ranking of LatAm private hospitals via a webinar organized in partnership with El Hospital, the leading hospital and healthcare industry magazine in Latin America.

Below you can view the webinar, which was held only in Spanish.

If you’d like to learn more about the ranking and obtain a copy, please click here.

If you’d like to read further about El Hospital’s article on the ranking, which includes profiles of top private hospitals in Latin America, please click here.

Next Steps

Contact us if you’d like to obtain a deeper level of market intelligence for LatAm’s private hospitals. Most of the major private hospitals in Latin America—in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, among others—can be found in our HospiScope database, which you can subscribe to and use for sales planning, marketing initiatives, crafting strategy and more, all based on hard data that is constantly updated by GHI’s large research team.

Beyond HospiScope, GHI’s team can create a custom market research study for you on LatAm private hospitals or all of the region’s hospitals. This option will deliver all the strategic data you need to uncover sales opportunities as the LatAm medical equipment market returns to pre-pandemic levels. Other resources that can help you deepen your understanding of the LatAm medical equipment/devices market include SurgiScope, ShareScope and the LatAm Hospital Monitoring Service.

At present, there is a shortage of 80% of reagents used in specialized tests such as thyroid hormones, prostate antigen or tumor markers for those who had cancer. The costs of routine prostate antigen testing to rule out prostate cancer in men aged 50 and above will increase from USD 1,182 to USD 5,902. Due to excessive costs, many Venezuelans would not go for preventative tests.

Ideally, every year Venezuelans need to have tests that costs between USD 1,182 and USD 2,939. The coagulation tests that must be performed for any patient undergoing surgery are not free in hospitals and in the private sector the minimum cost is USD 2,939. The union of bioanalysts stated that due to rising costs rigorous analysis required for identifying contagion of diseases in blood supplied for transfusions are neglected.

Analysis of samples of blood transfusions done in the last year reflected that the number of samples contaminated with HIV, Chagas, hepatitis or syphilis remains the same. The Municipal Bank of Blood of the Capital District, which is responsible for carrying out tests of blood samples coming from various hospitals has a limited supply of reagents. In these hospitals, they are making use of these reagents such that they are being used only for the important cases, in the intention that reagents will last longer.

El-nacional

Many people appeal to international donations, for which many NGOs have been mobilized, to exchange or purchase medicines on the black market as alternatives. The NGO “A Medicine for Venezuela” is one of those organizations that collects medicines to help patients trapped without treatment. The organization sends the medicines through local companies that must draw a series of obstacles at the end of which is SENIAT, the Venezuelan customs authority. It prohibits private transportation of medicines and food, in addition to prohibiting corruption in customs. Once the numerous barriers are overcome, the help network must be careful not to attract attention to large storage areas for pain medicines as a they may be accused of hoarding drugs or contraband. The Venezuelan NGO “Codevida” oversees the distribution on the ground by means of a telephone drugstore. The pharmacy went from receiving 300 calls a month in 2016 to 5,000 this year. Codevida gathers information on the most demanded medicines, including those needed for organ transplant operations, analgesics for terminals, drugs for multiple sclerosis, hepatitis. In the process, there is a base of 30 fixed volunteers who manage the donations, most of which are processed by the Facebook page or with contributions from laboratories and pharmacies.

The experts of the Venezuelan Society of Cardiology have coordinated a survey about the 43 main health centers of focused on the endowment to treat cardiovascular diseases. 75% of hospitals had no aspirin, an essential drug for the treatment of heart disease. Patients with heart attacks are being treated as they were 40 years ago, when the incidence of deaths for this reason reached 15%. The government has not released mortality figures since 2013. That makes it difficult to know the real dimensions of the crisis.

The test, of European origin, classifies patients diagnosed in early non-metastatic stages into two risk groups. Patients in the low-risk group very likely would not to require chemotherapy. In Mexico, 55% of all breast cancer patients in the early stages do not need chemotherapy, but, 95% of them are treated with chemotherapy. This test would help to avoid “unnecessary toxicity”, as well as the contraindications and side-effects of both chemotherapy and drugs. The public health sector can significantly reduce its costs with this test, in addition to being sure to give the treatment that the patient needs. It is normal for patients who react badly to chemotherapy to be hospitalized to treat other types of discomfort from treatment. Of the cancer cases diagnosed in the country, 20% (190,000) correspond to breast, a disease that is covered by the Mexican health system. This is the first time that the public health system has introduced a genomic test into its diagnostic table. This decision was taken by the General Health Council from WHO estimates, according to which 1 in 3 Mexicans will have a diagnosis of cancer throughout their life. The private insurance sector in Mexico has had this test since 2009, which has generated savings of approximately USD23 million.

Elsiglodetorreon

During the presentation, it was stated that resources would allocated as: 35,361 (64%) to medicines and vaccines; 15,039 (27%) to patent medicines; and 4,926 (9%) to healing material, which will benefit 80% of the country’s population and the largest volume of the purchase will be for chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. The Secretary of the Civil Service and the ISSSTE added that this year will be tendered a thousand 609 keys, of which 768 are medicines, 692 cure materials and 149 patents, and will select those that guarantee greater competition, better prices and curative efficiency.

This year’s consolidated purchase – the fifth since starting this scheme in 2013 – has a growth of 13% compared to 2016 and a 20% increase in the number of participants and guaranteed transparency through the intervention, throughout the process, of representatives of national and international social organizations, as well as external actors of the public sector.

During the presentation of the scheme of this tender, the IMSS detailed that the number of pieces required will be 2.184 million units, 6.6% higher than last year, making it the largest purchase of health supplies in the history of the country.

At the time, the Public Service Secretariat, stated that through this consolidated purchase scheme, IMSS has been able to improve the quality of services in health, based on the quality of life and well-being of the citizenship. Finally, it was stated that all public servants involved in the operation of the bidding will sign a declaration of no conflict of interest, to guarantee their impartiality and confidentiality and, as in previous tenders, this stage of the process was transmitted live by social networks to ensure maximum publicity and transparency.

Aristeguinoticia

Photo: Aristeguinoticia

The BD Kiestra InoqulA equipment has enabled continuous processing and given the opportunity to bring “Telebacteriology” through high-resolution automated imaging to facilitate remote diagnosis.

The INCAN stated that bacteria evolve daily, and can get to the point of not being controlled. Safety and promptness in bacterial identification and antimicrobial susceptibility studies are essential in the management of patients with infectious diseases, and rapid timely diagnosis and treatment reduce not only morbidity but also the spread of infection. The equipment installed in the clinical laboratory of the microbiology area could contribute to decrease the days of hospitalization of patients and thereby reduce costs associated with the complications suffered by patients.

According to studies by the World Health Organization (WHO), infectious diseases are the second cause of death – just below cardiovascular diseases – because infectious agents cause more than 25% of deaths each year. In a statement, the institute adds that, in 2014 alone, in Mexico there were more than 39 million cases of respiratory, gastrointestinal, urinary tract and periodontal infections, among others. Becton Dickinson’s in Latin America, stated that the type of automation that these diagnostic systems allows doctors to respond more quickly and improve the quality of results.

20minutos

For the age group of 15 to 26 years, the orientation of the Ministry of Health is the vaccination schedule with three doses, with interval of zero, two and six months. People who take the first dose in this period, exceptionally, will have the two subsequent doses guaranteed in the SUS. Double dose vaccination against HPV in boys prevents diseases and helps immunize girls. The ministry points out that it receives vaccines and medicines with a maximum of six months of manufacturing and that, from the national stock, no lot has maturity for this year. The routine use of this vaccine in the target population, which is for boys in the age group of 11 to 13 years and girls of nine to 14 years, must be maintained with two doses, being applied with interval of six months between them.

The HPV vaccine Quadrivalent is safe, effective and is the main form of prevention against the appearance of cancer of the cervix, fourth largest cause of death among the women in Brazil. In men, it protects against cancers of the penis, oropharynx and anus. In addition, it prevents more than 98% of genital warts, stigmatizing disease and difficult to treat. Transplant recipients of solid organs, bone marrow or cancer patients from nine to 26 years of age are also part of the targeted population. The services that serve this population must offer the HPV vaccine in the work routine. As per the MOH, from the beginning of the vaccination, in 2014, until June of this year, 18 million doses were given to the female population of the whole country. In the age group of nine to 15 years, in the same period, 10.7 million girls were immunized with the first dose, which corresponds to 74.7% of the total Brazilian population in this age group. They received the complete two-dose vaccination schedule recommended by the Ministry of Health, 7.1 million girls, which corresponds to 47% of the target population. Regarding boys, from January to June of this year, 853,920 adolescents aged 12 to 13 years were vaccinated with the first dose of the HPV vaccine, which corresponds to 23.6% of the 3.61 million boys in this age group.

Noticias; Agencia

The main initiatives in the first half of the year to advance Philips’ strategy in Latin America include:

1. Technologies for hospitals and clinics- “Tasy”. Solution developed in Latin America that digitizes medical records and administrative processes within hospitals and clinics, continues its expansion at a global level with its deployment in Mexico, Europe and the Middle East. Recently the solution was adopted by the important network of clinics and hospitals in Mexico, the Christus Muguerza Health System. Tasy has allowed an increase of up to 50% in profitability and a 20% reduction in operational costs.
2. State-of-the-art medical equipment- “Azurion”. The innovative platform of guided therapy, was launched at a global level and is entering the Latin American market. The software allows to optimize the accomplishment of procedures minimally invasive, offering a new option of treatment for patients who cannot withstand an open surgery and while reducing the time of recovery. To meet the demand for this type of technology in Latin America, Philips also inaugurated, in the beginning of the year, a new medical equipment factory in Varginha where it produces: x-ray, magnetic resonance, tomography and ultrasound.

3. Initiatives that empower the medical community to improve health care – “Health Connection”. The initiative continued its trajectory in the region arriving from Mexico to Argentina. Through it, Philips seeks to unite key players in the medical sector to find innovative solutions to improve maternal and child health in the region.
4. Within this framework, Philips also unveiled “AMI (Mobile Mother and Child Care)” in Argentina, an initiative that will provide women with free obstetrical ultrasounds and educational talks about the importance and methods of breastfeeding.

Awareness of chronic diseases, non-communicable diseases now make up the largest proportion of the total burden of disease in Latin American and Caribbean countries. Illnesses such as sleep apnea are under-diagnosed so Philips seeks to raise public awareness about symptoms but also provide tools for accurate diagnosis and proper course of treatment. For example, the company is enabling home care through portable and connected solutions allowing people to follow their course of treatment out of the hospital.

Philips continues to introduce solutions in the region’s markets that enable people to live healthier. These include products such as home appliances (Viva and Duravita blenders, and Pasta Maker), mother and child care products (Philips Avent line), and improved oral health care via line of Sonicare toothbrushes.

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