The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s U.S.-Mexico Economic Council (USMXECO), in partnership with AmCham Mexico, co-hosted the first U.S.-Mexico Health Forum in Mexico City on February 26-27, 2025. The hosts featured U.S. Chamber subject matter experts, including Varnee Murugan, Executive Director of the Global Initiative on Health and the Economy (GIHE), and Ryan Denson, Manager at the Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC).
The event convened leaders from government, academia, civil society, and the business community to focus on the importance of expanding access to healthcare and contributing to economic growth in Mexico and North America as a whole. The private sector plays a major role in strengthening health supply chains, and in this spotlight series, we hear from business leaders about their company’s impact in Mexico.
Today’s sponsor spotlight is on Jorge Luis Caridad, Managing Director Mexico at J&J Innovative Medicine.
How is your company contributing to advancing health in Mexico?
For over 135 years, Johnson & Johnson has been committed to providing healthcare products and solutions to individuals worldwide. Our focus lies in discovering, developing, and delivering medications that tackle the most severe and complex medical challenges of our time, with the goal of altering the trajectory of health outcomes. By leveraging our strong internal capabilities alongside scientific innovation, we aim to revolutionize the prevention, treatment, and cure of diseases.
Our clinical research plays a vital role in strengthening the Mexican healthcare system. Beyond generating high-quality employment opportunities in research centers, an innovation ecosystem empowers Mexican researchers to enhance their skills and gain valuable experience with the most innovative treatments available while other colleagues around the world elevate the quality of medical practice and standards in the country.
By participating in clinical trials, patients gain access to cutting-edge therapies that are not yet available in the market, allowing them to benefit from treatments that could significantly improve their conditions, especially in cases where current options are limited or simply there are no other therapeutic alternatives available other than participating in a clinical trial. These trials offer comprehensive, state-of-the-art management for patients and are primarily funded by the company, generating relevant savings to institutions where clinical trials take place. This approach not only fosters advancements in medical care but also enriches the overall patient experience in Mexico.
Clinical trials not only significantly enhance healthcare but also have a deep impact on the economy. It is estimated that for every job created directly within clinical trials, an additional six jobs are generated indirectly throughout the supply chain. This multiplier effect illustrates our substantial contribution not only to improving health outcomes but also to the overall economic well-being of Mexico.
We are actively investing in programs aimed at enhancing the skills and knowledge of healthcare professionals throughout Mexico. In 2023, we invested $133 million pesos dedicated to educational initiatives, resulting in the training of 8,500 healthcare professionals. Through these efforts, we equip practitioners with the latest advancements and best practices, thereby fostering improved patient care and health outcomes nationwide.
Furthermore, we are committed to supporting communities through financial and product donations. In 2023, we donated $26.5 million MXN to support community initiatives, benefiting 46 programs across 25 organizations and positively impacting over 65,700 individuals.
In Mexico, J&J have a long and successful track record of investment in clinical trials that spans more than 20 uninterrupted years, focusing specifically on therapeutic areas with the largest unmet medical needs providing therapeutic alternatives for more than 2,000 patients who have participated in our clinical trials during the past 5 years, and in 2023 alone, we conducted a total of 36 clinical studies involving 354 patients. We currently have 27 active studies across 21 states, collaborating with more than 200 researchers.
Where does your company see the greatest opportunity for collaborating with the Mexican government to improve the country's healthcare system?
We believe that the Mexico 2030 Plan, presented by President Claudia Sheinbaum, is pivotal for enhancing the healthcare system in Mexico for the coming years. Mexico has the potential to become a regional clinical research and innovation hub, attracting more than $2 billion USD annual investment in clinical research from the pharmaceutical industry. Achieving this goal requires a very intentional collaborative ecosystem that brings together regulatory bodies, government institutions, research centers, and the pharmaceutical industry, working with the patients in the center.
Cornerstone for achieving this objective is establishing an agile, transparent and effective regulatory framework with short and predictable approval timelines, a strong legal structure that provides long term certainty for stakeholders regarding intellectual property enforcement (patents and data protection), and an efficient economic environment that creates the right tax incentivies to attract this investment both domestic and international to Mexico.
Creating such a positive and friendly environment for Clinical Trials that increase the level of competitiveness of Mexico is clearly one of the areas in which J&J is proactively and intensively collaborating with the Mexican government.
How does your company contribute to a stronger and more unified North American region when it comes to the healthcare sector?
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical importance of integration and collaboration among countries in our region, and the profound impact that health has on productivity and development. In this context, the close relationship between Mexico and the United States presents an opportunity to capitalize on mutual development efforts in the healthcare sector.
We believe in a collaborative approach to address the most complex health challenges of our time. By working together with various stakeholders and investing in clinical research in Mexico, we can not only boost the local economy but also strengthen the region's overall capacity to respond to health challenges. Our efforts focus on standardizing the availability of clinical trials across the Americas, enrolling patients from diverse countries to create the necessary diversity within the context of clinical trials.
Moreover, we are committed to ensuring equitable access to pharmaceutical innovation in the region, aiming to provide every patient with access to our innovative therapies, regardless of their origin or nationality. This approach is designed to elevate and unify the quality of healthcare across the region. By facilitating knowledge transfer and skill-building among researchers and healthcare professionals, we contribute to a more unified and robust North American healthcare ecosystem.
From your company's perspective, how can events like the recent US-Mexico Health Forum help improve Mexico's healthcare system and U.S.-Mexico healthcare cooperation?
These events create a vital platform for exchanging ideas and developing concrete action plans by integrating diverse perspectives from various stakeholders in the health sector.
This first US-Mexico Health Forum was a big step towards achieving a greater and more effective collaboration among key actors—including government, health institutions, researchers, academia, patient groups, and industry leaders—enabling us to address pressing challenges within the healthcare sector, such as primary care, funding, access to innovation, and the vast opportunities that clinical research presents.
As we discussed during the panel I had the honor to moderate, these spaces are instrumental to harness the strengths of all sectors involved in healthcare, forging a path towards a more effective and cooperative healthcare framework in both countries.
