Financialization of the pharmaceutical industry and its impact on urban peripheries in the Metropolitan area of the Valley of Mexico

Abstract

The process of financialization is present in the health sector, particularly in the case of large pharmaceutical companies. In the case of Mexico, there has been an expansion of pharmacies with medical offices as a result of capital flows, but also due to the absence of a quality public health system. This paper analyzes how the contemporary processes of pharmaceutical company financialization have allowed the expansion of the medical office-based pharmacy scheme and, to a certain extent, the “substitution” of health services managed by public authorities in the urban peripheries of the Metropolitan Zone of the Valley of Mexico. Based on information from Farmacias Benavides and Farmacias Guadalajara, issued by the Mexican Stock Exchange, on several indicators on health and pharmacies in Mexico, as well as semi-structured interviews with residents of the metropolitan periphery, it is argued that the exponential growth of pharmacies in the last two decades is linked to the policy of expansion and construction of social housing. These housing projects, largely due to weak regulatory controls, do not develop an adequate health infrastructure both in qualitative and quantitative terms, thus favoring the opening of financial instruments that have allowed large pharmaceutical companies to expand in recent decades.