translated from Spanish: UNOPS opens 100,000 mdp tender for drug purchase

On 4 December, UNOPS, the United Nations office to which the Government of Mexico commissioned the consolidated purchase of medicines from 2021 to 2024, will publish the international public tender bases awarding 1,007 drug keys, therapeutic groups of oncology, neurology, endocrinology, cardiology, gynecology, pneumology, gastroenterology and hematology. In a second phase of this international tender, UNOPS will publish, on 11 December, the basis for the acquisition of 601 keys to healing material.  
These tenders will be published on the United Nations Global Market (UNGM) and managed through UNOPS’ eSourcing platform. In the case of the tendering of medicinal products, the event of clarification of doubts of those interested in participating will be held between 14 and 16 December. The official date will be set in the coming days. 
The submission and opening of tenders will be on January 18, 2021, the signing of contracts is scheduled for March next year and the start of the supply for May. Although Giusepe Martinelli, Deputy Regional Director and UNOPS Representative in Mexico, said, during the second briefing on the consolidated purchase of medicines and healing equipment, that every effort will be made to ensure that it begins in April. 
Find out: What UNOPS is and what the tender will look like to buy ‘corruption-free’ drugs as AMLO says
For the healing material part, the clarification session will be between 16 and 18 December, the submission and opening of tenders on 25 January, the signing of contracts in March and the start of the supply in May. 
Along with Martinelli explained, UNOPS also leads the process of purchasing medicines for the critically critical grocery and cannot wait beyond January 2021. It involves more than 360 keys, both patent and single source. 
For this, Martinelli reported, successful negotiations have already been conducted with 26 patent-owning companies, for 99 keys. The next steps in this will be the notification, guarantee of offers and signing of contracts with the selected companies. In this case the abasto will begin in January 2021. 
30% of these critical abaste drugs are cancer drugs, although there are also for endocrinology, cardiology, hematology, infectious diseases, neurology, pneumology, dermatology, rheumatology and analgesia.
For generic medicines and healing material prioritized by 2021, 262 keys will be awarded. In this, “an expedited procedure will be done. A tender for 36 cancer keys was launched on 11 November. We are finishing validating the amounts and on December 7th the invitation for the rest is launched. We wait the next week to receive the offers and the award will be made this year. That’s the commitment. But it depends on many factors, such as the response of different companies, that we can quote all the keys and have reasonable prices,” Martinelli said.
Ensuring the quality of the drugs
All contracts awarded, he said, will be published on the Website of the United Nations Global Market for all to know. On the issue of the quality of the products purchased, the representative of UNOPS stated, with reference to points by some representatives of the national pharmaceutical industry that lower quality drugs could be purchased, that this was not under discussion. 
Read: Mexico signs decree for the purchase of medicines for 32 thousand mdp with UNOPS
“What is intended to achieve is the best quality, achieving efficient supply for the Mexican population, and promoting transparency in purchasing processes, all through the promotion of open competition, on an equal footing, which is known in Mexico as an even floor.” 
On the doubts of the national industry as to what type of products will enter the market, whether they will have a health record and whether there will be an even floor for all, América Orellana, Commissioner for Health Authorization of the Federal Commission for the Protection of Health Risks (Cofepris) explained that there are already equivalence recognition agreements published in the Official Journal of the Federation that allow to ensure the quality of medicines purchased abroad. 
Orellana stated that these agreements included the recognition of evaluation requirements equivalent to those of Mexico and the registration trade issued by foreign authorities (in recognized countries and regions) that the products were safe and effective.
Regarding distribution, Alejandro Calderón Alipi, Supply and Distribution CoordinatorINSABI’s Medicines Agency, noted that it is intended to use both Birmex, the state-owned company, as well as private logistics operators. 
“We are contemplated with the help of Birmex to distribute the medicines, but in the first stage we plan to continue using logistics operators. Birmex has already implemented 11 warehouses in CDMX, State of Mexico and Hidalgo and with the help of logistics operators the distribution will be made”. 
In the purchase for 2021 with UNOPS, 2 billion pieces of medicines and healing materials are considered, at a cost of more than 100 billion pesos, to guarantee the total coverage of 110 million inhabitants served by the different public health institutions: IMSS, ISSSTE, Pemex, Sedena and 26 states.
 
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Original source in Spanish