88/106 drugs have results
Regarding the reflection that medical facilities nationwide are currently lacking drugs, partly due to the National Drug Centralized Procurement Center's slow progress in obtaining centralized bidding results and price negotiations, this unit has provided information to the press.
The National Drug Centralized Procurement Center (abbreviated as the Center) said that the national centralized bidding for most (88/106 drugs) had results from August 3, 2022 and will be effective from September 1, 2022 to August 31, 2024.
Thus, the results have been implemented for more than 1 year and the implementation time is nearly 1 year. Furthermore, the Center only organizes bidding for generic drugs of group 1 and group 2 of 32 active ingredients out of a total of 1,226 active ingredients in the list of drugs for bidding.
“Therefore, most of the demand for drugs for treatment is carried out by local centralized purchasing units or by medical facilities themselves organizing bidding,” the Information Center said.
Drug shortage due to slow results of centralized bidding and price negotiation?
According to the Center, for drugs with negotiated prices, the winning bids for 64 generic drugs have been announced in 4 rounds and the framework agreement for the first round is effective from November 15, 2022 to November 14, 2024, and the fourth round is from April 17, 2023 to April 16, 2025. Price negotiation is a form of bidding with a complicated process, facing many difficulties, and there is no regulation on the time for announcing the results.
At the same time, the number of drugs on the list that are subject to price negotiation is very large, including 701 drugs, so the Center has developed a plan and roadmap suitable to the time conditions of the Price Negotiation Council and the number of staff performing price negotiation (increased from 04 drugs in 2021 to 64 drugs for 1 negotiation round in 2022).
During the period when the results of the national centralized bidding and price negotiations have not been announced, medical facilities are allowed to organize bidding to ensure the supply of drugs for treatment needs according to the provisions of Article 18 of Circular 15. The Center always has a written notice on the progress of centralized procurement and requests medical facilities to proactively purchase drugs for medical examination and treatment.
Not provided due to unpaid medical facility
What is the status of the contractor's supply since the results were released? Has there been a shortage of drugs? How is the use of the results of the National centralized bidding by medical facilities?
According to the Center, contractors basically meet the supply schedule to medical facilities nationwide. In some cases, contractors do not supply drugs because medical facilities have not made payments to contractors according to signed contracts. The Center has a written request for medical facilities to strictly comply with the content of the contract signed between the two parties.
For some imported drugs that are slow to supply due to a global shortage of raw materials due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic or have not been approved by the Drug Administration of Vietnam for import orders for special control drugs, the Center has requested contractors to sponsor drugs with equivalent technical criteria for medical facilities during the time when winning drugs have not been supplied.
"For drugs in the list of national centralized bidding with winning bids, there has been no shortage of drugs so far, ensuring adequate supply to medical facilities," the Center affirmed.
The use of drugs in the list of national centralized bidding is currently relatively low, specifically according to updated data on the implementation value from September 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023 (implementation period of 10/24 months) of each bidding package, specifically as follows:
Package 1 (North): reached 24.0% (VND 519.5 billion/VND 2,162.3 billion);
Package 2 (Central region): reached 18.6% (VND 233.1 billion/ VND 1,256.4 billion);
Package 3 (South): reached 19.0% (VND 562.9 billion/ VND 2,962.9 billion);
There is no shortage of drugs, ensuring adequate supply to medical facilities.
The main reason why medical facilities report back is because the time of drug planning took place before the Covid-19 pandemic, so drug use, disease patterns, and basic patient numbers changed after the pandemic.
Regarding the next implementation plan of the National Drug Bidding Center in the coming time, the Center said that for the current centralized bidding work at the national level, the Center is submitting to the Ministry of Health for approval the Contractor Selection Plan for the bidding package to supply ARV drugs to medical facilities nationwide in 2024-2025. After the Contractor Selection Plan is approved, the Center will proceed with the next steps in the contractor selection process.
For 50 drugs in the list of centrally-bidded drugs, the Center is reviewing the list to continue organizing the selection of contractors to supply drugs to medical facilities, with the expected time of drug supply to facilities from September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2026.
Regarding price negotiation, on October 26, the Center was approved by the Ministry of Health for the Plan to select contractors to supply 2 HIV/AIDS treatment drugs on the list of drugs subject to price negotiation from health insurance sources and other legal sources in 2024-2025. The Center is currently urgently carrying out the next steps according to regulations for this bidding package.
For generic drugs, the Information Center is finalizing the Contractor Selection Plan for 86 drugs, expected to be submitted to the Ministry of Health for approval in November 2023. At the same time, it is expected to synthesize the needs of medical facilities nationwide for 64 generic drugs whose framework agreements will expire at the end of 2024 and early 2025 .
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