Govt Tightens Price Control on Foreign Drug Firms

Govt Tightens Price Control on Foreign Drug Firms

Foreign drug companies in Vietnam are not allowed to increase drug prices without permission from the country's Ministry of Health, according to a document released on Monday.

The ministry's Drug Administration Department sent the document, which says foreign companies producing and trading medicines in the country have to keep their prices unchanged except in imperative cases, to companies on January 24.

Even in urgent cases, companies have to inform the health ministry and give detailed accounts of their plans to increase drug prices.

The health ministry must then issue its approval, before the companies can follow through with their plans.

However, drug prices will remain the same from now to the Lunar New Year festival (Tet) as the health ministry will only start considering such price increase proposals after Tet (early February) is over.

The ban on arbitrary increases of drug prices is one measure the Drug Administration Department is taking to better control drug prices.

Vietnam’s pharmaceutical market is currently dominated by a total of 249 foreign-invested enterprises, especially the five firms including Swiss-owned Zuellig Pharma, Thai-owned Mega Products, French-owned Sanofi-Synthelabo Vietnam, German-owned Diethelm and Indian-owned Ranpaxyz. They import around 60 per cent of total drugs available in Vietnam and provide 90 per cent of the total materials Vietnam needs for medicine production.

Such firms have increased their prices many times in the past year due to loose State management, seriously hurting poor patients in the country.

As at the end of last year, pharmaceutical prices soared 9.1 per cent against a year earlier, according to official government statistics.

• (Young People, Labour)