Being the President the same of the last 4 years, there is the perception that there will be continuity, but in reality there is hope for a new government.

Many times the challenge of governments is to generate novelty within the previous government team. There is evidence that whoever tries fails.

He/she fails not because he/she tried, but because it's difficult to break up the errors and diversions common in any continuity model.

In the previous government term the national pharmaceutical laboratories submitted plans to two Department of Health Secretaries aiming at providing pharmaceutical assistance to the lower income population in the country.

And what was the outcome? Have you by chance heard about it in the media? No. The plan not even moved from the Secretary’s desk to the executive adviser. In fact, it should have followed through to the President of Republic. Ironies apart, we can say that the President did not know there was a conscientious accessible and honest proposal to bring medicines to less endowed people.

Bringing medicines to less endowed people is part of an authentic plan of social belongingness, something that no Health Secretary should let go by sharing plans with other Secretaries and with the President.

But this happened in the previous government term. The current hope is that the new government, renewed in its expectations and grounded in its principles, may pay more attention to the organized suggestions of society.

A pharmaceutical assistance plan means bringing medication to poor people in Brazil, who do not have any resources to purchase medicines, whatever the price. This is of interest to all those who are involved with public health of the Brazilian people.

In order for the government to step forward, meaning that it actually moved forward, would be to have a pharmaceutical assistance plan included in the agenda, which the country has not seen so far.

If the government can include in its accomplishments a pharmaceutical assistance plan, in line with its principles of favoring the less endowed people, the government could be the same as in the previous term, but it would proudly include these people in the Brazilian identity as any one of us.

We cannot demand of the pharmaceutical industry to resolve this problem. Pharmaceutical assistance to the less endowed is a government obligation. The industry will not be able to distribute free medicines (otherwise there would be corporate difficulties), but it is fully aware of its social duties and may substantially cooperate in a program of such magnitude - as it has proposed in the past.

Josimar Henrique is President and CEO of Hebron and Vice-President of Febrafarma – Brazilian Association of Pharmaceutical Industries.