CRITERIA strengthening the network to generate knowledge and skills on explicit prioritization and benefit plans in Latin America

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There is a growing need to prioritize public spending on health in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially in the context of universal health coverage, as is amply demonstrated that no economy in the world can pay all health technologies available to cover health needs of all citizens. This situation is worse, because although health spending has grown significantly in recent years (an analysis of per capita spending between 2000 and 2013 indicates that this has risen from around 500 US $ in 2000 (PPP constant 2011) , to about 4,500 in 2013 (World Development Indicators, 2015)), this is in the region on average five times less (US $ 761; 2013) than in high-income countries (US $ 4,652; 2013) (World Bank, 2014) , despite health needs they are similar.There are many pressures on health spending fruit, among others, the change in the epidemiological and demographic profile of the region. However, the factor that has pushed spending growth has been the emergence and use of increasingly expensive health technologies. According to a recent review of international literature, technological pressure on average account for 50% of growth of health spending (Sorenson, et al.2013).About this, it is important to note that the countries of the region face strong pressure from different stakeholders (patients, doctors, producers and distributors of health technologies) for new technologies with public resources are covered. These factors combine to explain why several countries in the region have seen rapidly grow your drug expenses and why Latin America is an increasingly important part of the world pharmaceutical market. To illustrate the importance of the region in this market, according to the Global Health Intelligence (2015), the growth of Latin American drug market by 2017 will be 12%, an increase four times higher than report the European market and the US.