IAPO Latin America Meeting report available

IAPO Latin America Programme 2014: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 21-23 August 2014

In August 2014, we held our fourth regional meeting in Latin America to coincide with the 16th International Conference of Drug Regulatory Authorities in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.   

Regional workshop

We held a two day regional workshop for IAPO member patients’ organizations focused on capacity building, network development and action planning. We built member capacity by focusing on issues including universal health coverage (UHC), biological and biosimilar medicines and health technology assessment. We linked this to organizational development topics such as advocacy and communications. 

IAPO members also developed a joint statement on universal health coverage which was then delivered by an IAPO representative to Ministries of Health at the Pan American Health Organization's (PAHO) Directing Council in October 2014.  

Multi-stakeholder seminar

We hosted a half day multi-stakeholder seminar on increasing the patient voice in drug regulatory authorities too. Healthcare stakeholders including patients’ organizations, drug regulatory authorities, academia, industry, policy-makers and healthcare providers debated how patient engagement at all stages of regulatory processes can ensure safe and timely access to treatments, and ultimately achieve universal health coverage (UHC). Read more about it here.  

Meeting report

Available in English and Espanyol.