The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has issued the Project on Developing the Pharmaceutical Industry in Ho Chi Minh City to 2030, with a vision to 2045, which aims to build a 338-hectare medical-pharmaceutical industrial park (IP) in Le Minh Xuan 2 IP (Binh Chanh District) to produce drugs. The project is expected to help ensure pharmaceutical security for the city, while contributing to socio-economic development.
What medicine is focused on producing?
Sharing with Thanh Nien reporter, Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Khanh Phong Lan - National Assembly delegate, Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Food Safety and also an expert in the pharmaceutical field - commented that Ho Chi Minh City has the greatest strength as a trading center in the southern region, convenient for transporting and supplying drugs to other regions, concentrating many research, training, production and business facilities. Pharmaceutical production, trading and import-export activities in Ho Chi Minh City always have high growth and account for a large proportion in the pharmaceutical economic structure of the whole country. She hopes that the city will successfully build a pharmaceutical production industrial park to proactively supply.
Inside the research room of a pharmaceutical factory in Ho Chi Minh City
However, according to Associate Professor Dr. Pham Khanh Phong Lan, we must also recognize the reality that there are two groups of drugs: branded drugs and generic drugs (out of protection). Each group has difficulties that need to be solved, and it does not depend only on the city.
"The first group is the original brand name drugs, no one brings this group of drugs back to produce in the city or anywhere else. Because they are exclusive drugs and are imported from abroad, related to the registration number policy and insurance prices. And we are following a strategy to increasingly tighten these groups of drugs because they are expensive, and it is not easy for patients with insurance to use them," Ms. Lan analyzed.
Regarding generic drugs, Ms. Lan said that this is the target that Ho Chi Minh City is aiming for when building industrial parks and pharmaceutical factories. In this aspect, Ho Chi Minh City does not lack pharmaceutical factories but is stuck in production strategy and investors.
"The output strength is that hospitals use this group of drugs, but when hospitals currently follow the bidding mechanism, there is only one way: the cheaper the drug, the better. Therefore, the output of drugs is stuck in the competitive price of factories in Ho Chi Minh City when compared with factories in the provinces. For example, in the provinces, land rent is cheaper, production costs are cheaper, so drug prices are also cheaper than in Ho Chi Minh City," said Ms. Lan.
According to Dr. Lan, there is a reality that has been going on for many years, that is, every household "sees people eating potatoes and also digs them up". That is, whenever there is a type of medicine on the market that is in high demand or waiting for a foreign medicine to expire, all parties rush to buy raw materials and then crush them into pills to sell. This is called "counterfeit medicine" and so how can we create a difference? She pointed out that there are countless types of cold medicine on the market but you can only "count on your fingers" the number of businesses in Ho Chi Minh City that pay attention to developing their own products or at least researching the bioequivalence of these medicines.
The pharmaceutical production orientation of Ho Chi Minh City has a very high intellectual content and is in line with the development trend of science and technology, especially for a city with a large consumption output. In addition, the hospital system has a large number of doctors and patients to have good research results. However, it is necessary to carefully consider what to invest in, where, and what needs to be encouraged.
"We should not follow the trend of every company producing dozens of types of pharmaceuticals, but all of them are common. If we can do something different, then do it. For example, investing in injectable drugs, infusion drugs, vaccines, the types we are lacking, or high-tech drugs. In the beginning, we should promote cooperation with the "big guys" in the pharmaceutical industry, and when we have enough strength, we will separate," Ms. Lan suggested.
Must have direction
According to Associate Professor, Dr. Phong Lan, the fact that Ho Chi Minh City allocates land for pharmaceutical production is very welcome, but there needs to be a clear direction. It should be noted that this direction is not decided by Ho Chi Minh City alone, but the Pharmaceutical Law must establish a strategic direction that if the domestic pharmaceutical industry is to be developed, it must do at least as well as foreign countries. She mentioned a simple matter of not importing what we have done.
Associate Professor, Dr. Phong Lan suggested that Ho Chi Minh City should calculate in advance the quantity, how many branded drugs and how many generic drugs are needed. From there, evaluate whether the production capacity of enterprises can meet the demand or not. Priority will be given to domestic production of generic drugs for enterprises and no more registrations will be accepted when the number is full, unless any company returns the registration number.
Associate Professor, Dr. Phong Lan raised the issue of having to untangle the procedures and regulations for granting registration numbers and especially the bidding mechanism. According to her, the goal of bidding is to save money, fight corruption, and fight negativity, but in the end, it wastes time, effort, and money without anyone bidding.
Need for independent research center
Speaking with Thanh Nien , the director of a pharmaceutical business in Ho Chi Minh City said he is considering whether to enter the city's pharmaceutical industrial park or not, because he still has to see what the specific mechanism is.
However, according to him, the draft of the new Pharmaceutical Law has ignored the fundamental issue of pharmaceutical industry development, which is the formation of an independent pharmaceutical research center. Experience shows that each factory and each enterprise establishing its own center will lead to fragmentation and failure to develop. The foreign pharmaceutical industry develops thanks to relying on independent research centers, transferred to factories. If we have independent research centers, it will help businesses reduce investment costs, because if every factory has to invest nearly a hundred billion VND in a research center, but only to make a few products, it is very wasteful.
Next, it is necessary to build centers for testing bioequivalence (equivalent to original drugs) that meet international standards. Because currently, Vietnam's centers have not met standards and are not internationally recognized. A drug produced in Vietnam needs to prove bioequivalence for export, so it must be tested abroad, which is very expensive. This is also the most basic foundation for developing the pharmaceutical industry, the director affirmed.
The third issue he mentioned was the policy for businesses. Currently, many businesses invest in factories in neighboring provinces, so moving to Ho Chi Minh City is not easy. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify what benefits businesses will receive when entering the city's pharmaceutical industrial park, such as tax incentives, priority in registration numbers, exports, etc.
The human factor is equally important, training schools must provide adequate human resources and train specialized fields in pharmaceutical research. And finally, infrastructure, according to this person.
Should link existing factories
A lecturer in the pharmaceutical industry in Ho Chi Minh City also commented that researching new drugs (new active ingredients) in Vietnam is quite difficult because it involves pharmaceutical technology. However, Vietnam, especially the South, has strengths in researching new dosage forms and new excipients. This is an issue that Ho Chi Minh City needs to research and develop policies.
According to this lecturer, if a pharmaceutical industrial park is opened and production is normal, the price is dependent (or even more expensive), it will be similar to factories in other places and it will be difficult to attract without good policies. Currently, factories in the provinces have finished depreciation, so the cost price has decreased compared to the products of newly built factories.
"Currently, there are many pharmaceutical factories but they have not been fully exploited, while a lot of drugs are imported. Therefore, Ho Chi Minh City needs to calculate the use of available resources, which is to link factories, take the lead (establish research, operation and distribution centers) to share drug processing, because each factory has different production lines and strengths. This is a very effective direction," said the pharmaceutical lecturer.
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