Background on the Situation
Eduardo Clark, Undersecretary of Health Integration and Development, announced the commencement of direct allocation for approximately 1,200 medication keys under consolidated purchasing for the period of 2025-2026. This decision comes after irregularities were found in the initial bidding process, including overpriced sales and submission of false documentation by certain suppliers.
Current Status
Currently, around 600 keys are subject to potential supplier changes and will undergo auctions due to detected issues. Of these, 60% pertain to curative materials and 40% to medications, reagents, and medical devices.
Clark highlighted concern for 180 keys where current suppliers have failed to deliver any items. Around 100 of these are for curative materials, while the remainder pertain to medications and reagents.
Reassignment Process
These keys are being reassigned through auction processes and contract extensions from the previous year, in collaboration with health institutions to ensure adequate supply.
Simultaneously, the health sector maintains active contracts for keys unaffected by single-source allocation irregularities.
Approximately 230 million pieces of medications and medical supplies remain pending delivery. Clark emphasized that these deliveries are necessary as they have already been requested from suppliers.
Recent Developments
- A few weeks ago: 21 oncology keys were allocated.
- Last week: 154 non-oncology keys were allocated, resulting in an average savings of 30% compared to the initial bidding prices.
Upcoming Actions
This week, purchase orders will start to be issued, and deliveries will commence on May 12.
“These are the keys that we, in the sector, were all worried about because we couldn’t request them due to obvious reasons, but now that we’ve overcome the issue of not having contracts, they were allocated last week and will start arriving next Monday,” Clark stated.
This week, new contracts will also be issued for many previously canceled keys.
Current Supply Levels
Despite the public bidding nullity of the consolidated purchase, Clark announced that both IMSS and ISSSTE have surpassed 95% supply coverage, similar to early-year levels.
IMSS-Bienestar has increased its supply to approximately 80%, a 10% increase from the previous month.
Ongoing Investigations
Raquel Buenrostro, Head of the Anti-Corruption and Good Governance Secretariat, disclosed that 59 companies participating in the public bidding for the large-scale medication purchase are under investigation for irregularities.
Biomics Lab has been disqualified, another company may face a criminal process for document falsification before Cofepris, and 16 pharmaceutical companies are under investigation.
