President of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), Dr Carmen Peña, has stated investment in the pharma sector is required to ensure universal health coverage, at the opening of the 77th World Congress of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Invest in growth
Healthcare is a key economic sector, within which Peña specified investment would be wise with service provision an important way of achieving universal health coverage.
“For sure the pharmaceutical sector can generate decent, inclusive and sustainable jobs that will lead to better social protection, equality, human rights and the economic empowerment of women and youth, but investment in education and research is needed […]. There can be no pharmaceutical workforce without education and research,” she said. “Within this framework, we can foster a renewed workforce of knowledgeable, competent and skilled pharmacists, pharmaceutical scientists and educators in sufficient number to promote our professional development through the expansion of pharmaceutical services, giving people what they expect and what they need.”
Peña highlighted the investment that FIP has already made in the pharma workforce, such as its work with the World Health Organisation (WHO), which, she stated, has led to the recent decision of the UN to include pharmacist numbers as an indicator of the density of healthcare professionals.
At the beginning of her presidency, Peña revealed her ‘two times two’ plan for pharmacy (professional development and promotion and defence of pharmacy’s interests at an individual and collective level), which included service provision. In her opinion, pharmaceutical services are an intrinsic part of health services and new services are the response to the new needs of a new society.
“As with new medicines, where we know the importance of research in gathering evidence, we must also apply this concept to pharmaceutical services to be able to understand the importance of demonstrating, from a clinical perspective, their effectiveness for the patient and, from an economic perspective, their efficiency for our systems,” she emphasized.