Read the Conversation
Conversation highlights:
- LFB’s mission: strengthen multidisciplinary hospital teams and improve critical care response. Present in Mexico since 2017, the company celebrates 30 years globally as a leader in plasma fractionation and converting donations into life-saving treatments.
- The Role of Mexico: After successfully achieving market access in Mexico, LFB is now focused on education and expanding its presence. The company sees major opportunities in improving hemorrhage management in obstetrics, high-risk surgeries, and trauma, as well as addressing unmet needs in immunodeficiencies and rare diseases, especially at a time when healthcare has become a top priority on the national agenda.
- Importance of the LFB Summit 2025: LFB seeks to establish protocols and guidelines as a daily practice in hospital settings, design a Mexico-specific strategy to accelerate the use of innovative therapies, and bring together high-specialty healthcare professionals from 25 states to strengthen nationwide capabilities.
EF: How do you see LFB’s mission evolving in Mexico, and what do you consider the company’s biggest driver when it comes to improving patient care?
PE: LFB Mexico has a very clear mission: supporting hospital teams, multidisciplinary healthcare practices, and critical care settings. Our focus is on hospitals facing patients with severe bleeding conditions, which sets us apart from the more traditional approaches of transfusion medicine.
We established the Mexican affiliate in 2017, building on LFB’s legacy in France, which last year celebrated its 30th anniversary. As a French government-owned company dedicated exclusively to plasma fractionation, our role is to receive plasma and transform it into safe, effective therapies for severe diseases. From the start, our efforts in Mexico have involved close collaboration with the public sector, advancing state by state and institution by institution. When we launched in 2017, our treatment for severe hospital hemorrhage cases was entirely new. Market access here requires time: first with the health council, then through the essential work of educating institutions and introducing innovative treatments. That has been our focus since 2018, after the approval was granted by the ‘Consejo de Salubridad General’.
Today, we are proud that many of these therapies are now used across the majority of public institutions in Mexico. Much remains to be done, but the current administration has opened new space for dialogue and collaboration. Our priority is raising awareness, monitoring outcomes, and demonstrating how these treatments enhance patient care while helping to manage costs. For patients, the difference compared to traditional transfusion is significant: safer products, lower infection risks, shorter hospital stays, and, ultimately, lives saved. Patients return to their families sooner, and the wider healthcare ecosystem also benefits.
Our second key area of focus in Mexico is immunodeficiency. Since 2023, Mexico’s National Health Council has formally recognized around 5,500 rare diseases included under the WHO’s classification. By recognizing the existence of rare diseases, the people living with them become visible, research is promoted, and diagnosis and access to treatment are facilitated. This marks a shift from a purely financial approach to a patient-centered policy. LFB already offers treatments for immunodeficiency and aims to expand into hemophilia and other plasma-derived therapies over the next 24 months.
We also recognize the challenges tied to Mexico’s efforts to streamline COFEPRIS processes in alignment with the health council and the FDA. Every company depends on the pace of approvals, and our goal is to deliver these therapies to Mexican patients as quickly as possible. On this, we are fully aligned with the rest of the industry.
EF: With the recent LFB Summit highlighting the importance of being present in the field and sharing information, how does it translate to measurable reductions like maternal mortality?
PE: The unique offering we bring through the LFB Summit is the opportunity to gather hospital experts from different specialties. For this year, the emphasis was on obstetrics, trauma, and critical care. It is a forum where experts share their experiences utilizing European guidelines and Mexican protocols for treating these conditions.
Maternal mortality and postpartum hemorrhage remain a central priority for the current administration. Trauma cases, often connected by daily violence, accidents, or severe injuries, require modern treatment options that extend beyond traditional transfusion therapy. At the Summit, teams discussed how evaluations in emergencies should be conducted collectively. All professors emphasized the same point: the importance of following established protocols and working together to deliver the right treatment at the right time.
We also provide innovative training alternatives, including remote learning with simulators. In Mexico, we launched our Hemosims, which allows multidisciplinary teams to practice with real cases and review the way decisions are made.
We brought healthcare professionals from more than 25 states across three summits. High-specialty hospitals in the government sector must follow the same practices, and that’s part of what we are examining. It ultimately comes down to ensuring market access and making these treatments available nationwide.
EF: How are you raising awareness among more Mexicans about the supply side of donating towards treatments?
PE: Plasma collection is another important issue on the agenda. In Mexico, donations are voluntary and unpaid, similar to the model in France. At LFB Mexico, we are not currently involved in the collection of plasma. Every medicine we supply in Mexico originates from France. Still, this is a significant moment as Mexico invests in this sector, which is essential for both ambulatory care and hospital treatments. It is also an opportunity for LFB, as a government-owned company, to share the experience we have built in our European operations with collection, fractionation, and production, identifying common needs for improvement. The Ministry of Health and the government are open to collaboration, and we see opportunities to move forward with projects and programs together.
Building a plasma fractionation plant can take more than 10 years of investment. In France, LFB will open a major plant in Arras in 2025, which will triple our production capacity. With Mexico identified as a strategic country for growth outside France, our objective is to make sure these medicines are available to Mexican patients.
Looking ahead, Mexico faces challenges in both meeting the needs of its population and strengthening the healthcare system. It will be necessary to set priorities around those issues that can create the greatest impact. We want this subject to move higher on the agenda so that we can develop a working model to improve the current system.
EF: What do you see as the key pillars for building a roadmap to ideal care in Mexico, and where would you invest first to achieve it?
PE: Considering the medium- to long-term goal of achieving self-sufficiency in blood collection and fractionation, with the ultimate aim of producing these medicines in Mexico, the first step must be to build a culture of donation. We can learn from international models, but the real starting point is donation, together with industry and government, defining the best way forward. It is a complex process, different from synthetics or traditional pharmaceuticals, because the medicine itself comes from human plasma. Ideally, plasma-derived treatments for Mexican patients should be produced with donations from our population. Raising awareness around donation is something that can begin right away.
The next step is managing the plasma that is already being collected. Reforms in the Ley General de Salud are already addressing changes reflecting the strategy towards improvement of patient blood management, better use of existing resources, with a related link to local industrial opportunities in this sector. After that comes the question of how to strengthen the system. In the United Kingdom, a review is currently underway to update regulations for plasma-derived medicines and transfusion products. The model is complex, but the important thing is that it is on the agenda and that the first steps are already included in government programs.
EF: Looking back on your career and your first year at LFB, what message would you like to share about what comes next?
PE: It has been a very interesting challenge to work in this specific segment of healthcare. For me, it was the first time learning about the plasma industry and about rare diseases. What I hear every day is the message of how much patients in Mexico have an increased demand for these modern treatments. That is what LFB is committed to: making sure we help improve the lives of those in need, with demand that will continue to grow. Mexico’s population is aging quickly, and the demand for these therapies is increasing. We want to be here for the patients, and LFB Group also wants to be present for patients in Mexico. That is what drives me every day.
The LFB Mexico team is fully engaged, knowing how close we are to making a real difference for families and healthcare professionals across the country. We contribute through education and by bringing clinical practices already established in other countries, expanding best practices that we have in Mexican Institutions, helping accelerate their adoption so they can be applied in our hospitals every day. It is a complex model, and at the same time, a fascinating challenge.
We are a company that is highly compliant. Ethics and code of conduct guide us in everything we do, and we will continue with this approach. Collaborating with healthcare professionals, public institutions, and the private sector is an essential part of our daily work.
