Six thousand products, including medicines, raw materials and those from the food industry are waiting to get new health registrations or renewals.
Although in the last two years there has been an improvement in registration times, at the moment it takes about a year to register a new medication, said Rodrigo Salas, president of the Costa Rican Association of Health Registrars (Asocores).
More than 1,000 drugs must wait 10 months to get a health certificate of registration granted by the Costa Rican Ministry of Health.
Health Ministry figures show that there are currently 1215 different drug applications awaiting registration.
The delay in registration is mainly due to the rejection of about 80% of the applications received for lacking the required information, said Arias Xinia from the Customer Service department at the Ministry of Health.
More than 2.000 products are up to seven months behind in obtaining the required health certifications to be commercialized in the country.
The Health Ministry informed that in April they had 2.500 pending products, but the figure is not consistent with data from Asocores, the Costa Rican Association of Health Registrars, which states that the ministry has 5.100 pending products.