Specialty Pharmacotherapy in Latin America: A Doctor’s Perspective on Regional Challenges and Collaborative Solutions

By Dr. Raciel Rizo, MD, Regional Medical Director, Latin America, PharmCare Services

When it comes to healthcare in Latin America, the conversation often revolves around access, infrastructure, and cost—but few recognize the intricate challenge that lies at the core of ongoing care management: pharmacotherapy. As the Medical Director overseeing several nations in this part of the world, I’ve seen firsthand how medication management—seemingly straightforward in well-integrated health systems—becomes a puzzle of logistical, regulatory, and clinical complexity across borders.

Disparities Between Knowledge and Practice

Physicians throughout Latin America are highly motivated and increasingly well-informed. Many attend global medical conferences, complete continuing education, and stay current with the latest treatment guidelines. In theory, our clinicians are ready to offer best-in-class care. In practice, however, they are often constrained by the realities on the ground.

A doctor in Argentina may want to prescribe a cutting-edge biologic for a patient with rheumatoid arthritis—yet that medication may not be registered locally, or worse, it’s approved but entirely unavailable due to market withdrawals or pricing issues. A physician in Paraguay may understand the ideal GLP-1 agonist for a patient with obesity and metabolic syndrome but lack the ability to source it reliably, making adherence and therapeutic success nearly impossible.

Regional Barriers: From Infrastructure to Regulation

Latin American countries operate under varying regulatory frameworks, pricing controls, reimbursement structures, and distribution systems. This mosaic leads to unequal access to medications that are standard of care elsewhere. The result? Clinicians are left improvising, modifying treatment plans to fit what’s accessible—not what’s optimal.

To complicate matters further, there’s a lack of harmonization in how medications are handled across borders. Cold chain requirements, specialty handling needs, and controlled substance regulations all add friction that few insurers or policymakers see, but all prescribers feel.

For international payers and TPAs (Third-Party Administrators), these issues can lead to claim delays, prior authorization conflicts, and unexpected cost escalations—simply because the reality on the ground diverges so widely from what clinical guidelines and policy documents assume.

Bridging the Gap with Collaborative Expertise

This is where strategic collaboration becomes not just helpful, but essential.

At PharmCare Services, we’ve developed a model that supports physicians with cross-border expertise and real-world logistics. Our team includes physicians, pharmacists, and operational experts from multiple countries and specialties who work together to align the clinical ideal with what is feasible in each market. To enhance our efforts, we've also established a state-of-the-art international pharmaceutical management (IPM) platform, PCSRx.

This platform serves as a critical extension of our team's work, helping to facilitate our services by connecting patients, prescribers, and payers in real time. It enables our experts to more efficiently access the information needed to navigate complex challenges. We don't simply look at a prescription as a "yes or no" choice; we use the platform to help identify therapeutic alternatives when a first-line agent is unavailable, navigate regulatory pathways to dispense critical therapies when needed, and ensure cold-chain integrity and pharmacovigilance protocols are followed.

By leveraging our team's expertise and the supportive functions of the PCSRx platform, we relieve a major burden from both physicians and insurers, allowing them to focus on care instead of procurement, as well as avoid unnecessary costs, misaligned approvals, or treatment abandonment due to medication unavailability.

A Call for Alignment

If there is one message I would deliver to the international private insurance community, it’s this: managing specialty pharmacotherapy in Latin America is not just about approving the right drugs—it’s about understanding the real-world limitations in distributing, dispensing, and maintaining those therapies across fragmented systems.

The solution is not always tighter policy—it’s closer cooperation with those who understand the clinical and logistical terrain.

With coordinated efforts between prescribers, PharmCare Services’ multi-national clinical team, and international payers, we can transform pharmacotherapy from a pain point into a point of partnership—improving outcomes for patients and reducing inefficiencies for payers alike.

About the Author

Dr. Raciel Rizo, MD, serves as the Regional Medical Director for PharmCare Services within Latin America, where he oversees cross-border clinical operations and care strategy. With over 20 years of experience in internal medicine and health system leadership, Dr. Rizo is committed to advancing equitable access to therapies across Latin America.