To develop Vietnam's pharmaceutical sector on a par with advanced countries in the region

To develop Vietnam's pharmaceutical sector on a par with advanced countries in the region (Internet image)

Regarding this issue, LawNet would like to answer as follows:

On October 9, 2023, the Prime Minister issued Decision 1165/QD-TTg approving the National Strategy for developing Vietnam's pharmaceutical sector for the period to 2030 and vision to 2045 (Strategy).

To develop Vietnam's pharmaceutical sector on a par with advanced countries in the region

The general objectives of this Strategy are as follows:

- Develop Vietnam's pharmaceutical sector to be on par with advanced countries in the region, ensuring people's access to medicine at a reasonable cost;

- Improve research capacity and application of available technology to produce original brands name drugs and drugs with new, modern dosage forms, aiming to become a center for manufacturing, processing/technology transfer of original brand-name drugs in the ASEAN region, striving to develop the domestic pharmaceutical sector to level 4 according to WHO classification;

- Develop medicinal herbs, drugs, and products from domestic medicinal sources in the field of producing goods of high quality and value;

- Promote the production of medicinal raw materials; optimize medication use.

In addition, the Prime Minister also set specific goals until 2030 for the National Strategy for developing Vietnam's pharmaceutical sector, as follows:

- Strive to have 100% of drugs provided proactively and promptly for disease prevention and treatment needs; ensure drug security; meet the requirements of national defense, security, disease prevention, and control; overcome the consequences of natural disasters, public health incidents, and other urgent drug needs.

- Domestically produced drugs strive to meet about 80% of demand and 70% of market value. Continue to strive to achieve the goal of producing 20% of the raw materials needed for domestic drug production. Domestically produced vaccines meet 100% of the demand for expanded vaccination and 30% of the demand for service vaccination.

- Strive to become a high-value pharmaceutical production center in the region. Receive technology transfer, process, and coordinate technology transfer to produce at least 100 original brand-name drugs, vaccines, biological products, including similar biological products, and some drugs that Vietnam has not yet produced.

- Built 08 areas for sustainable exploitation of natural medicinal herbs and 02 - 05 areas for large-scale medicinal herb production. Restored, imported, acclimatized, and developed 10–15 species of medicinal plants originating from large quantities of imports. 100% standardized medicinal ingredients (extracts, essential oils, and medicinal powders) for domestic drug production.

- Achieve WHO level 3 or higher certification on the capacity of state management agencies for pharmaceutical chemicals; maintain and improve WHO certification on the capacity of state management agencies for vaccines.

- Sustainably maintain the rate of 100% of drug businesses meeting good practice standards; Strive to have 100% of drug testing, vaccine testing, and biological product testing facilities meet good laboratory practice (GLP) standards; 20% of drug manufacturing facilities meet EU-GMP, PIC-GMP, or equivalent standards.

- Strive to have 30% generic drugs (except drugs with local effects and drugs with systemic effects that have bioequivalent properties with reference drugs); domestically produced and imported products with circulation registration certificates are assessed for bioequivalence; 100% of drugs circulating on the market are fully monitored and managed for effectiveness and safety according to regulations of the Ministry of Health.

- 100% of medical examination and treatment facilities have organized drug use activities and implemented clinical pharmacy activities. The ratio of people working in clinical pharmacy reached 01 person/100 inpatient beds and 02 people/1,000 prescriptions dispensed to outpatients with insurance cards in a day. Provide good-quality pharmaceutical care services.

- Complete digital transformation of the pharmaceutical sector; 100% digitization of information and data on drugs licensed for circulation that are still valid in Vietnam, updated into the pharmaceutical sector Data Bank; 100% of drug manufacturing, wholesale, import-export, and retail establishments nationwide are interconnected; Ensure the maintenance of 100% operation of level 4 online public services in the pharmaceutical sector integrated into the National Public Service Portal; Deploying artificial intelligence applications in pharmaceutical sector activities.

- Achieve a ratio of 4.0 pharmacists/10,000 people, of which pharmacists trained in clinical pharmacy are at least 20%.

More details can be found in Decision 1165/QD-TTg which takes effect from the date of signing.

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