The theme chosen for this edition was based on the Sustainable Development Goals, a global agenda adopted at the United Nations Summit in 2015, as a contribution by this collective to achieving the goals and targets by 2030 (https://brasil.un.org/pt-br/sdgs). 

Pharmaceutical sciences play a strategic role in this agenda, particularly about Goal 3 – Health and Well-being, which aims to guarantee access to quality health and promote well-being for all at all ages, and Goal 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, which aims to build resilient infrastructures, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.

Recently, the launch of the National Strategy for the Development of the Health Economic-Industrial Complex, by Presidential Decree 11.715.23, corroborates the role of pharmaceutical sciences in the country’s development. The National Strategy aims to guide public and private investment in the productive segments of health and in innovation, in the search for productive and technological solutions to meet health challenges, to reduce the vulnerability of the Unified Health System (SUS) and expand access to health. The strategy involves different forms of incentives for science and national technological development. It gives Pharmaceutical Sciences a fundamental role in the sector and the need to organise, plan and prepare researchers, universities and scientific institutions to integrate the proposed public policies.