Opportunity for Vietnam to become a global center of medical innovation

Does Vietnam have the opportunity to become a global center for medical innovation? That was the question raised at the recent workshop “Innovation: The medicine for sustainable development of the medical industry” organized by Investment Newspaper.

In recent years, along with the process of socio-economic development, the process of promoting industrialization and modernization of the Vietnamese pharmaceutical industry has been taking place rapidly and strongly. The Vietnamese pharmaceutical industry has made certain progress and achieved remarkable results.

Specifically, the Vietnamese pharmaceutical market is growing strongly with a total value from 3.4 billion USD in 2015 to 7.2 billion USD in 2023, with domestic production accounting for about 50% of the total value of treatment drugs.

Average drug spending per capita in 2021 will reach 73 USD, an increase of 66.3 USD compared to 2002, an increase of 50.75 USD compared to 2010, 70 USD in 2022 and 72 USD in 2023.

With rapid growth in domestic pharmaceutical production, it shows strong growth potential in pharmaceutical exports and becoming a regional pharmaceutical hub.

In addition, the current average GDP per capita income is increasing, the demand for medicine among the people is increasing in both quantity and quality, at the same time, the harmony and integration of the development of the pharmaceutical industry also opens up great opportunities for trade and participation in the international pharmaceutical market.

Commenting on the Vietnamese pharmaceutical market, Ms. Bui Thi Viet Lam, country representative, USABC Vietnam, said that we have great potential with an average double-digit annual growth rate and increasing per capita income.

Speakers attending the Workshop organized by Investment Newspaper.

Some members of USABC Vietnam have established production facilities, cooperated with domestic partners to transfer technology, and accompanied policy makers in efforts to attract foreign investment and transfer technology in medicine and pharmacy.

In addition, the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2016 Pharmacy Law is receiving special attention from pharmaceutical enterprises. In particular, Ms. Viet Lam believes that if the bottlenecks are resolved, it will attract large foreign investment flows into Vietnam, and consider opening production facilities in Vietnam.

Policy is the first issue that businesses mentioned at the Workshop. Accordingly, businesses expect consistent and predictable policies because investing in the pharmaceutical industry is a medium and long-term investment, this consistency helps businesses feel secure in their investment.

Vietnam identifies an open investment environment to attract investment, and that thinking needs to be reflected in specific guiding circulars and decrees.

Enterprises expect the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2016 Pharmacy Law to remove three bottlenecks for enterprises: market access, administrative procedures and preferential policies.

Regarding market access, it currently takes 3 years for a new drug product to enter the market, and another 3-4 years to enter the group of drugs for health insurance patients, so on average it takes nearly 7 years for people to access a new drug. The life cycle for production, testing and market entry is too long, affecting the production costs of enterprises.

At the same time, the representative of USABC Vietnam emphasized that specific incentives must be clear to stimulate manufacturing enterprises. Accordingly, when defining a vision, an ambition, attracting investment from advanced companies in the world, Vietnam must act with specific policies because no one waits for anyone, new trends often appear quickly and countries do not sit still waiting for Vietnam.

In the region, countries like Malaysia and Indonesia have accelerated the implementation of incentive mechanisms to attract investment in medicine and pharmaceuticals. When developing policies, we need to look at whether what Vietnam is doing is attractive enough for investors to have a clearer strategy.

Sharing the question "Does Vietnam have the opportunity to become a global center for medical innovation?", Ms. Viet Lam said that Vietnam is completely capable, but are there policy breakthroughs and are the resources in Vietnam ready?

In addition to the policy factor that needs to pay attention to human resources and the highest labor productivity, we will have to synchronize policies to build the Law. We have a policy to prioritize training talented human resources abroad and attract Vietnamese people to work.

According to Mr. Le Minh Sang, senior health expert of the World Bank in Vietnam, there are a number of necessary and sufficient conditions for a country to succeed in medical innovation.

It is about creating an enabling environment for IT innovators and IT adopters.

Digital innovation needs to be promoted to address public health priorities. User engagement and adoption of digital health applications needs to be enhanced. Digital health applications need to be maintained, such as interoperability and integration; financing mechanisms and reimbursement systems; and monitoring and evaluation.

Currently, innovation in the healthcare sector in Vietnam is developing and there are some lessons that Vietnam needs to learn from other countries.

First, there is a need to continue developing data standards and interoperability to support broader and deeper health information flows; ensuring widespread adoption of standards by health IT vendors.

Second, there is a need to leverage emerging health data sources to support public health planning, management, and surveillance. Third, there is a need to create incentives to integrate digital health into core health services.

There is also a need to meet citizens/patients' expectations for more efficient, effective and personalized services.

Finally, there is a need for evaluation and monitoring to ensure that digital health is delivering on people’s health priorities.

Mr. Luke Treloar, Head of Infrastructure, Government & Healthcare (IGH), KPMG Vietnam, said that the pharmaceutical industry's target of reaching a value of 20 billion USD by 2045 is achievable, but depends a lot on Vietnam's decisions and policies.

What measures will Vietnam take to protect investment and establish a friendly business environment to attract suitable investments? These will be the factors that help Vietnam develop both the top and bottom of the supply chain. Vietnam is on this journey.

There are many other countries in Southeast Asia that also want to have this kind of intellectual property and investment returns in the pharmaceutical industry, but Vietnam has its own characteristics to realize its goals.

"I think $20 billion in economic contributions over the next 15 years is a fairly realistic figure. Vietnam has many opportunities to learn from other markets, applying technology to deal with fraud in the normal production process," said Mr. Luke Treloar.

In the manufacturing sector, it is possible to start developing some products locally, then transfer technology to jointly develop global technology. Then enter the research and development (R&D) phase, clinical trials, and creation of intellectual property.

The ultimate goal of a marketplace is to get to the final stage, where you create spin-offs and intellectual property that yield a larger dividend than the initial investment, according to Luke Treloar.

Besides, Vietnam has the opportunity to learn from other markets, look at case studies if you want, to know how to shorten that cycle and do many steps at the same time.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/co-hoi-de-viet-nam-tro-thanh-trung-tam-doi-moi-sang-tao-y-duoc-toan-cau-d225940.html