The federal government reported a reconciliation of pending payments with the pharmaceutical industry worth 110.8 billion pesos as of June 30, 2026, equivalent to 63% of the IMSS-Bienestar budget for this year, according to the Segundo Informe de Gobierno as reported by El Universal. Canifarma puts the debt still outstanding at close to 14 billion pesos.

The official report measures the reconciliation of pending payments; the industry chamber measures the balance that remains unpaid. El Economista reported on September 20, 2026 that Rafael Gual, general director of Canifarma, said that “progress has been made, but not at the pace we would like,” and that the official commitment is to settle the 2025 and 2026 debt before reviewing the 2024 debt and that of previous years. The executive president of the Asociación Mexicana de Laboratorios Farmacéuticos (Amelaf), Juan de Villafranca, told El Universal that settling the arrears is urgent and called for boosting the industry as set out in Plan México.

The point of friction is the tenders. Villafranca called for equal conditions in government purchases and warned that buying subsidized products from Asian countries sends the money abroad. The president of the Cámara Nacional de la Industria Textil (Canaintex), Rafael Torre Lamuño, said the government invited Asian countries to tender LA-12-NEF-012NEF001-I-285-2026, which covers medicines, wound-care supplies, diagnostic aids, reactive tests and textiles, and that Finance Ministry officials told him the 2027-2028 call would be opened to Asian suppliers because they sell cheaper. Concamin asked to exclude countries that have no trade agreement with Mexico; the request did not succeed.

Domestic production also contracted. Manufacturing of pharmaceutical products reached 15,637 million pesos in July, a decline of 1.7% year on year, with drops of 24.2% in analgesics and 48.6% in raw materials, according to Inegi's Encuesta Mensual de la Industria Manufacturera.

The next point of measurement is the payment reconciliation tables and the rest of the 2024 and earlier liability, which the industry expects to resolve in the short term.

This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence based on verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.