More effort needed to increase pharma readiness

Ta Manh Hung - Deputy director Drug Administration of Vietnam Ministry of Health

In the Law on Pharmacy 2016, there is a section on the pharmaceutical industry which states that attracting investment in the industry is a priority, especially in medicinal ingredients, specialised drugs, rare drugs, and others.

To realise the law, the government issued Decision No.376/QD-TTg approving a development programme for the pharmaceutical industry until 2030, in which we have clear goals about attracting investment in innovative and high-tech pharmaceuticals, striving to become a regional centre in the field and contributing about $1 billion to the country’s drug export value.

Resolution No.36-NQ/TW from January 2023 looks at the development and application of biotechnology, and the prime minister has decided to prioritise vaccines for humans. These policies are relatively ready, and we are continuing to complete the legal reform.

It is expected that the Law on Pharmacy will be revised in 2024, giving a priority to innovative drugs, rare drugs, vaccine technology, and biotechnology, and studying possible amendments of regulations related to distribution, and rearrangement of the distribution system to ensure efficiency. At present, the policies are relatively complete, but we will find where the bottlenecks are and solve them.

The pharmaceutical industry has made improvements from being only state-owned production units to now having many privatised companies. The number of factories has increased and developed rapidly in recent times.

However, the number of big companies capable of attracting foreign investors is limited, while local production focuses on generic medicines, and less on innovative ones.

Vietnam is also one of the few countries that can produce vaccines. Up to now, the country can produce 11 out of 12 in the national expanded vaccination programme. Nonetheless, the production is mainly based on traditional tech.

Recently, the World Trade Organization included Vietnam in the list of countries to receive mRNA vaccine technology transfer. This is also a step forward in pharmaceutical production.

However, the rate of funding in research and development is not high, and is failing at attracting high-quality manpower in the industry. These are the issues that we will continue to focus on in the upcoming time to attract investors in the industry.

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