Partnerships for the Productive Development of the Health Economic-Industrial Complex: the health question

Abstract

This paper discusses some of the main criteria used to define priorities for technological and industrial development by the Brazilian Ministry of Health regarding the Partnerships for Productive Development (PDP) Program.

In order to focus on the question of how to define priorities for technological development, the methodologies developed by the WHO and the EMA for that purpose are presented. WHO’s and Brazilian findings on main causes of burden of disease are briefly compared. WHO’s selected findings on major therapeutical gaps and technological development priorities are also compared to priorities selected and supported by the PDP program since its inception. A divorce between medicines prioritized and supported by the PDP program and the main causes of the Brazilian burden of disease was observed.

Also, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratios of several medications supported by the program were preliminarily estimated. The resulting ratios were about thirty times higher than the opportunity cost estimated for Brazil.

Findings of the above comparisons and cost-effectiveness exercise indicate that inadequate choices were made by the PDP program in the way to a progressive and equanimous universal health access in Brazil, anticipating a low impact on the Brazilian total burden of disease as well as a low effectiveness, efficiency and equity of the program regarding the health of the Brazilian population as a whole.