Read the Conversation
Conversation highlights:
- Mexico has achieved a historic milestone by including a dedicated health chapter in Plan Mexico 2030, marking the first time health has been declared a strategic lever for the country.
- The government has set an ambitious goal to increase clinical trials investment tenfold, from US$200 million to US$2 billion, positioning Mexico as a regional innovation hub.
- Mexico offers unique competitive advantages for clinical trials, including demographics that mirror the US population, cost efficiency, and proximity to supply chains.
- Johnson & Johnson is launching a strong pipeline over the next few years, requiring unprecedented coordination across commercial, medical, access, and regulatory teams.
- AI implementation is being embedded across the entire organization from R&D to field teams, with comprehensive training programs to help employees leverage technology for daily efficiency gains.
- Successful growth management requires ruthless focus and bold prioritization, allocating resources disproportionately to the highest-potential opportunities while connecting all efforts to patient purpose.
EF: This is an anniversary edition celebrating 10 years of Executive Forecast. If you had to identify two great achievements in Mexico's life sciences ecosystem over the past decade and one priority for 2030, what would they be?
JLC: The biggest achievement I've witnessed in the last couple of years is Mexico finally having Plan Mexico 2030 with a dedicated, exclusive chapter on health. This is the first time health has been recognized as a strategic lever at the highest government level. This achievement involved many stakeholders and cross-functional efforts, and I believe AMIIF has played a significant role in keeping health at the center of the dialogue with government officials, effectively translating its impact as a multiplier effect, enabling economic growth and social equity.
Within this health chapter, there are clear goals and objectives. The government has set a target to increase clinical trials investment in the country tenfold, from US$200 million to US$2 billion. This represents a strategic initiative at the highest level of the Mexican government and is unlocking discussions about the public policies needed to realize Mexico's potential as a hub for health innovation and clinical trials.
At Johnson & Johnson, we've been leading these conversations alongside other organizations, not just AMIIF, but also AMCHAM, CANIFARMA, and the US Chamber. As a leading global healthcare company, we have a clear objective of shaping public policy to create environments that are as friendly as possible for receiving and valuing innovation. Because at the end of the day, the value of health is measured in patients getting the chance to live longer, healthier lives faster.
Looking toward 2030, one critical objective is making COFEPRIS as efficient as possible to successfully compete with other countries in terms of regulatory approval timings. This requires investment in the agency, digitalizing processes, and harmonizing standards with other reference regulatory authorities worldwide. We're also working to raise intellectual property rights to international standards, ensuring it is not only protected but also enforced. The initiatives around implementing regulatory “reliance” in Mexico need to be paired with “linkage” and strong IP enforcement laws aimed at protecting pharmaceutical inventions, data generated, and patent’s lifespan, compensating for any administrative delays that might occur along the way, doing so will not only create legal certainty much need to bring innovation into the country but also, and most importantly, will protect patients safety.
Many of these topics will be part of the USMCA negotiations, and leveraging this great opportunity to achieve alignment, raising the bar to IP international standards will be essential for Mexico to unlock all its potential and become a true hub for pharmaceutical innovation. Although achieving this milestone is strategically fundamental for the country and Plan Mexico 2030, we need be aware that clinical trials offer innovative therapies to a rather small patient population, in most cases, with no therapeutic alternative available, we clearly need to look beyond, be more ambitious and find ways to extend access to innovation to the entire Mexico's population of more than 130 million people, with more than 90% of them being served in the public sector with clear opportunities of being timely diagnosed and properly treated.
EF: You're also competing with Brazil and Argentina for clinical trial resources. As Mexico's chief ambassador to Johnson & Johnson, what's your pitch for why Mexico is the better choice?
JLC: Mexico is a gem that hasn't been discovered yet. In a world where volatility is constraining several traditional drivers of patient enrollment, Mexico represents a compelling opportunity to build a different sourcing strategy. Having led Johson & Johnson in Argentina and helped position it as a clinical trial hub for the region where we successfully achieved more than 46% of the country’s private R&D investment coming from clinical trials, I’ve seen firsthand what it takes to make a market a trusted destination for global R&D, and I’m bringing those lessons and best practices to help build Mexico’s research ecosystem and reach more patients.
And that’s exactly why Mexico stands out, because we can build on a unique set of advantages and a clear strategy. First, demographics. The patient population in Mexico completely resembles US demographics, so when you recruit patients here, the results will resonate very well with other populations. Second, costs. It's significantly less costly to run clinical trials here compared to other countries, and this matters for scale and efficiency. Third, infrastructure. We have an amazing private infrastructure plus an extensive network of public hospitals and health institutions that are experienced in running clinical trials.
We also have an important base of experienced health care professionals and investigators across multiple therapeutic areas and specialties who are very familiar with clinical trial protocols and R&D. They understand the importance of participating and delivering high-quality results, both professionally and for the economic impact on their institutions, since these trials are entirely privately sponsored.
Proximity to the US is a clear competitive advantage because most supplies for clinical trials come from there, making timing and logistics much more efficient.
The former Achilles heel was approval timing at COFEPRIS, but this is changing. President Sheinbaum and the Secretary of Health have mandated faster clinical trial approvals. We've been tracking these approval timings through AMIIF, and we've seen improvements from 120-150 days to around 90 days. Even though we are moving in the right direction, when we compare to Brazil and Argentina's 30-45-day clinical trials approval timings, there’s still room for improvement. We're moving in the right direction.
What's being a game changer is the openness and willingness from COFEPRIS to find ways to cut regulatory approval timings, without sacrificing quality, safety, or rigor of technical evaluation. The government and private industry are working side by side, exploring multiple options to continue speeding up these timings, reaching international benchmarks.
If we achieve our timing targets with all these other factors just mentioned, Mexico will become a very interesting hotspot for clinical trials globally, not just regionally.
EF: AI is transforming every industry. What does a company of the future need, and how is Johnson & Johnson Mexico preparing for this transformation?
JLC: AI is not the future; it’s the present. There's no option but to embed it, embrace it, and ensure the entire organization uses and leverages AI on a daily basis. That's exactly what we're doing in J&J: training our people in AI and helping them to develop those capabilities and technical muscles that will enable them to take the most out of this technology.
We're showing them how to translate this technology into clear daily outcomes that save time, provide more efficient ways of working, and help them be more agile and accurate in their decisions. This isn't just about an amazing disruptive technology applied only in the context of drug discovery phases, though we do leverage AI to accelerate molecule discovery; it's about embedding it across multiple layers of the organization.
We identified critical core processes that create an important user friction and/or consume a lot of time and energy, then tackled those processes through the lens of AI to find ways to simplify them. However, it's equally important to understand where AI should not be involved. We learned quickly that you can't apply this technology to every corner of your organization. We know the power of AI, where to apply it, and which processes need to remain completely humanized to achieve the synergy that makes you even more competitive.
As a mission-driven and learning company, we're passionate about accompanying all our employees to develop these technological muscles. They need to know where to use AI, where not to, and how to leverage it effectively. We're creating apps and instances where they can learn through doing.
But innovation isn't only about AI. Think about our diverse pipeline and line extensions to be launched over the next few years. Consider the capabilities needed and how efficient we must be to ensure every launch succeeds across commercial, medical affairs, access, and external affairs. Behind every single one of these molecules and line extensions, patients are waiting for us; it’s a tremendous responsibility that keeps us busy and excited.
What really reaches my heart is that behind all these processes, and AI are people, how people grow, how we create an organization of brilliant minds and talented healthcare professionals who develop new capabilities and a winning mindset. That becomes a revolutionary force that extends beyond our organization to benefit the entire health ecosystem.
Innovation needs an ecosystem of talented, committed people eager to learn and sometimes fail to learn even more. We don't confuse challenges with opportunities; every challenge hides an amazing opportunity. We're showing people how to translate challenges into opportunities, and opportunities bring growth and success.
EF: With many new products planned to be launched over the next few years, how do you manage this level of growth? What's your advice for managing such ambitious expansion?
JLC: When you have many innovative therapies coming out of your pipeline, with a significant number of patients waiting for them, you must be completely and ruthlessly focused. You don't have time to lose, which makes you very pragmatic and fact-based in decision-making.
If you have bold focus and ruthlessly prioritize your biggest opportunities, then allocate most of your resources disproportionately behind them, you'll find success. When you go through that process, you become intimate with the market, the molecule, the professionals, and the barriers you'll face. You become predictive and can anticipate the toughest challenges down the road in the patient journey you're creating, because most of these therapies are completely new.
Create wisdom and knowledge, because knowledge is power, and power allows you to influence decisions. If you spread yourself too thin and allocate resources for reach instead of potential, you get diluted. You need to make choices and prioritize them.
Prioritizing isn't doing a little less of different things; it's stopping things that don't move the needle and going all the way on the others that really move the needle. That takes courage, because we're here to make decisions about where your highest stakes and highest odds are.
You need to be courageous enough to make those decisions and explain them, to build a vision where your employees see themselves reflected. You pass this through with energy and passion, so you can be infectious enough that they make this vision one of their own and accompany you every step of the way till the very end. Take every quick win you can to show this is the right way, that we made the sound decision, and we are moving fast towards realizing our vision.
The magic is connecting all of this with something bigger than you: the purpose. The purpose of being in front of a physician talking about a particular innovative therapy and the impact it will create in transforming a patient's life. If you achieve bold focus, smart resource allocation, and connection with purpose, nobody can beat you.
EF: How does Latin America's economic volatility shape healthcare leadership and investment strategies?
JLC: Talents that develop in this region develop important leadership capabilities that uniquely position them to succeed globally because of the economic and geopolitical volatility we continuously face in Latin America. We've experienced repeated economic cycles and periods of sharp volatility. These challenging conditions actually create exceptional leaders who understand how to successfully navigate uncertainty, make decisions in the face of ambiguity, and prepare to rapidly adapt to unknown or ever-changing conditions. When you've managed through those cycles, you develop resilience, flexibility, and adaptability that become invaluable in other markets. The key insight is that economic downturns and geopolitical volatility present the right moment to invest. Going counter-cyclical allows you to build stronger foundations when others are pulling back.
EF: What does building a resilient healthcare system mean in practical terms?
JLC: We're focused on building a healthcare system that can tolerate economic cycles and is resilient enough to self-fund its growth while remaining sustainable over time. This isn't about having one great year and then struggling. We're building something designed to endure and improve over time. The goal is to create a system that gets stronger with each cycle rather than being weakened by external pressures. This requires a long-term perspective that goes beyond immediate returns or short-term political cycles.
