Opportunities for domestic pharmaceutical industry

Hanoi (VNA) – Opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry in Vietnam are huge when 90 percent of pharmaceutical materials are being imported from foreign suppliers, such as the EU, India and China, according to experts.

Dr. Ngo Quoc Anh from the Chemicals Institute under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology said based on the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation’s five development levels for the pharmaceutical industry, Vietnam is ranked at third level which means the majority of the industry’s end-products are domestically manufactured from imported materials.

The expert said Vietnam’s pharmaceutical chemistry is under-developed due to a lack of planning, policy, and supporting industry. At present, the country has only one semi-synthetic antibiotic material manufacturer, producing about 200 tonnes of Amoxicillin and 100 tonnes of Ampicillin each year.

He noted that the Government has issued several decisions to develop the country’s pharmaceutical chemistry industry such as Decision 61/2007/QD-TTg and 81/2009/QD-TTg, adding that several research centres in the field have been formed with well-trained researchers including the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, and the Vietnam Institute of Industrial Chemistry.

However, technological processes are mostly at laboratory scale, and have not yet been applied for industrial production, while insufficient funding has hindered growth in the sector.

Dr. Anh suggested that in order to develop, the industry should further intensify scientific research and expand technological application to pharmaceutical chemistry production.

In his opinion, besides scientists, other social elements such as entrepreneurs, managers and international partners should be encouraged to take part in pharmaceutical chemistry projects, and in supporting handovers and technology transfer from foreign countries.

Anh also called for mobilizing investment from various sources for developing infrastructure and manpower for research centres in the field as well as issuing incentives in terms of credit, tariff and land-use rights to investors in the sector.-VNA