Biopharmaceutical and Biosimilar Products in Brazil: From Political To Biotechnological Overview

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one third of the world's population don't have the necessary access to pharmaceutical products, including essential drugs. In Brazil, the Governmental Health System (SUS) distributes some medicaments for free to the population. They were, then, classified into three categories in the country: basic, strategic and specialized components. Among these categories, the last one is highlighted due to the expensive costs of its products, which are essential for the treatment of rare and specific diseases. For this reason, the Ministry of Health created, in 1993, the Program for Specialized Medicaments, where all the drugs included in this category were distributed for free through Clinics and Hospitals. During the first year of this Program's implementation, there were 15 different items distributed into 31 distinct presentations. Nowadays, the list expanded to 150 different items dispensed into 310 presentations. Hence, the availability of imported pharmaceutical products in Brazil overloaded the expenses by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. Only during 2011, US$ 1.5 billion were spent on these products, where 30% of this amount was related to specialized ones. In order to reduce costs, the Brazilian Federal Government developed, in 2004, the Technological Innovation Law. According to the Decree number 6.041, the National Politics for Biotechnology and the National Committee of Biotechnology were created in order to stimulate the development of Biotechnology for human health, targeting mainly the national production of biopharmaceuticals. Furthermore, the end of patents for several medicaments during the last 5 years enhanced the motivation for national production of new drugs. In this way, some Governmental Institutions, in partnership with International Pharmaceutical Industries, started developing the first biosimilar molecules. Therefore, this report describes the evolution of Biotechnology in Brazil, relating the laws, regulations and Programs created along the last 20 years for Human Health application.