Mexico’s Health Secretariat Exposes Company for Distributing Medicines at Overcharges of up to 60% in the State of Mexico

BySugeyry Romina Gándara

This article by Sugeyry Romina Gándara originally appeared in the October 20, 2026 edition of SinEmbargo, an independent Mexican digital news outlet.

Mexico City, October 20 (SinEmbargo).- The Secretariat of Health (SSa) revealed a contracting scheme with a company linked to a television network that obtained multimillion-peso contracts to distribute medicines and operate pharmacies in public hospitals in the State of Mexico (Edomex), with overcharges that could exceed 50 or 60 percent per unit.

During the presentation of the case at the morning press conference of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (CSP), the Undersecretary for Sectoral Integration and Coordination of Medical Care Services, Eduardo Clark, reported that the company obtained contracts worth around 1.7 billion pesos between 2022 and 2023 to carry out both tasks.

“Imagine that the pharmacies, instead of being operated by nurses, pharmacy staff, chemists, were operated by a company. Basically as if we had a private pharmacy inside a public hospital,” he explained.

In this regard, he noted that the contract is under investigation, so he avoided revealing the name of the company. However, he indicated that the contracts can be consulted on the National Transparency Platform, since they are public documents.

The official specified that after changing the scheme and carrying out new tender and auction procedures, the federal government reduced the cost of the annual contract by 32 percent and managed to move between 30 and 40 percent more units of medicine each month.

“Today we are paying, as the President said, not only 32 percent less on the annual contract in reality, but in addition, with that same contract, we are moving between 30 and 40 percent more units of medicine month after month from the warehouses to the health centers,” he stated.

Eduardo Clark at the morning press conference
The official said the Secretariat of Health seeks to strengthen the public medicine distribution network. Photo: Andrea Murcia Monsivais, Cuartoscuro

Based on that comparison, Clark maintained that the overcharge per unit could exceed 50 or 60 percent, since the difference is not limited to the total amount of the contract; the volume of medicines currently distributed with the available resources must also be considered.

The Government Seeks to Recover Public Distribution of Medicines

According to the Undersecretary, the case is part of a broader review of contracts related to the purchase and distribution of medicines, in which the federal government seeks to reduce costs and strengthen the participation of the public network in the supply of medical supplies.

Clark warned that there are still distribution contracts that must be reviewed so that those tasks are taken over by public infrastructure, and noted that the contracting procedures awarded to Laboratorios de Biológicos y Reactivos de México (Birmex) during 2025 and 2026 can be consulted publicly.

Medicines in a public hospital
The administration aims to reduce medicine distribution costs and increase the volume of supplies. Photo: Daniel Augusto, Cuartoscuro

For her part, the President stated that the reduction in contracts has caused discontent among some companies that stopped receiving awards or lost previous agreements.

Some of those who have not won the tenders or whose contracts were taken away are not very happy, let’s say, because they no longer do business of this kind.

President Claudia Sheinbaum

Finally, the official defended the transparency of the contracting and called on people to consult the available information to verify where public resources go. In addition, he added that the goal of the changes is not to reduce purchases, but to buy more medicines and supplies through better prices.