Imexpharm continues to push limits of possibility

Imexpharm has strived for world-class standards for decades

According to research by the United Nations Population Fund, Vietnam’s golden population is estimated to last about 30 years from 2010 to 2040. But due to a lower birthrate and longer life expectancy, Vietnam is aging rapidly and the working-age population is shrinking. The country is also faced with rapid environmental degradation, which contributes to the rise of respiratory, cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

With the rapidly aging population and environmental degradation, cancer and chronic medical conditions such as heart disease and diabetes will be areas of high unmet medical needs in Vietnam, and new and better medicines are urgently needed to address these difficult-to-treat medical conditions. This will also lead to rising healthcare spending in the country.

According to the London-based market research firm Business Monitor International, healthcare expenditure in Vietnam in 2017 reached $16.1 billion, accounting for 7.5 per cent of GDP. Healthcare spending is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.5 per cent between 2017 and 2021.

In light of these indicators, Vietnam has become a potential market for pharmaceutical firms to expand operations and tap into the market’s growth. Indeed, Vietnam is restructuring the pharma distribution market to keep up with the changes.

Specifically, there is a shift in revenue from over-the-counter drugs to ethical drugs. The usage of domestic medicine instead of imported ones is growing quickly thanks to the government’s support.

In this context, pharmaceutical players are making investments to upgrade state-of-art assembly lines, strictly following and testing their periodic quality under EU-GMP and WHO-GMP standards.

With the “top quality, European standard” orientation, Imexpharm aims to bring high-quality medicine meeting international standards for both physicians and patients.

Over the past 40 years, Imexpharm has always followed the motto of “Vietnamese use made-in-Vietnam medicine meeting European standards”. The company has become a pioneer in innovation and investment in high-tech management system. It is also the first Vietnamese pharmaceutical corporation to gain an ASEAN-GMP certificate since 1997. Imexpharm is also proud of itself as being the first local pharmaceutical company manufacturing drugs for well-known multinational groups.

In 2013, Imexpharm is the foremost pharmaceutical business in Vietnam applying SAP-ERP management with eight modules to automate quality management processes from materials to products.

2016 marked an important milestone of Imexpharm when the firm became the first Vietnam pharmaceutical corporation with three EU-GMP assembly lines. The achievement laid the foundation for the company to successfully export the injection powder Imetoxim 1g to Europe.

Imexpharm received EU-GMP certificates for Vinh Loc High-tech Antibiotic Factory in 2019, increasing the EU-GMP standard lines to eight. The Binh Duong-based high-tech pharmaceutical factory was approved WHO-GMP by the Ministry of Health in 2019, and is expected to be certified EU-GMP in the second quarter of 2020. The factory is equipped with cutting-edge technology to produce the most effective products for the community.

Since the recent approval by European Parliament of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement and the EU-Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement, the company is well-placed to take full advantage of the trade agreement.

“After 1,000 years, lotus still blossoms” is Imexpharm’s business philosophy and operation principle through its foundation and development. In the early years when the term “sustainable development” was new to domestic businesses, Imexpharm pioneered in conducting strict commitments to meet strict criteria of a sustainable business.

Last but not least, Imexpharm always creates an ideal environment for the excellent pharmaceutical undergraduates to show their work and shine. With all of these efforts, Imexpharm continues to reinforce its position to become the leading industry player in the pharmaceutical sector in Vietnam and the region.