Hanoi (VNA) – The lack of a master plan has been blamed for Vietnamhaving to import up to 80 percent of its processed pharmaceutical materialsalthough the country has an abundant source of pharmaceutical materials and wasone of top exporters of raw pharmaceutical materials in the 1980s.

Professor Dau Xuan Canh, Director of Vietnam Institute ofTraditional Medicine, said Vietnam’s climate was believed to be very favourablefor growing many categories of medicinal plants.

However, scattered development could result in losing theopportunity to fully develop the potential of the country’s pharmaceuticalsector, he added. He spoke at a recent meeting on boosting the growth of thenational pharmaceutical industry, as reported by Thoi bao kinh doanh (BusinessTimes) newspaper.

For example, Vietnam is failing to exploit the potential ofcinnamon trees that are widely planted in our country, he said. “We could turnit into processed pharmaceutical material to serve the domestic pharmaceuticalindustry, but we do not,” he said.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO)ranks Vietnam in the third of five levels of pharmaceutical sector development,reflecting the fact that the domestic pharmaceutical sector imports most of theprocessed pharmaceutical materials it needs.

Data from the Ministry of Investment and Planning showed that Vietnamranks 16 of 22 countries in terms of pharmaceutical industry development, basedon its total drug consumption worth about 4.8 billion USD each year. The Vietnampharmaceutical market was also assessed to have the highest growth rate in theSoutheast Asia region, equal to 17 percent each year, projected to reach around10 billion USD by 2020.

However, most domestic pharmaceutical producers are small-scaleand scattered in various areas of the country, the Ministry of Industry andTrade said. Only seven of 170 producers manufactured chemicals for the localpharmaceutical industry.

Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien also admitted the paradoxof the domestic pharmaceutical industry. She said Vietnam was an agriculturalcountry with an abundant source of pharmaceutical materials, includingminerals, animals and medicinal plants.

A report issued by the health ministry last year said Vietnam has206 medicinal plants that could grow and provide 10,000-20,000 tonnes ofpharmaceutical materials each year.

But sadly, most of processed pharmaceutical materials now areimported, Tien said.

Vietnam also imports all its anti-cancer chemicals at exorbitantprices while it has many trees containing anti-cancer drug precursors, such asred pine (taxus wallichiana zucc) and Madagascar periwinkle (catharanthusroseus), she said.

Solutions

At a recent workshop on development of the national pharmaceuticalindustry, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc announced three major directions.

First, the role of pharmaceutical materials should be re-assessedon a national and provincial scale, and then a detailed plan should beformulated to boost it. "Developing the domestic pharmaceutical sector bydomestic pharmaceutical materials should be a strategy of the health sector,”he said.

Second, the pharmaceutical sector was asked to serve domesticdemand before turning to export. Authorised agencies were tasked with creatingfavouable conditions to encourage businesses to participate in thepharmaceutical sector, he said.

Last, the national pharmaceutical sector needs to be restructured,especially focusing on the processing and production stages, he said.

The PM ordered the health ministry to co-operate with the VietnamPharmaceutical Companies Association to make a list of 100 medicinal plants forextensive growing on a large scale.

The Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development was tasked withresponsibility to provide appropriate seedlings.

A supply chain consisting of farmers, businesses, scientists,State managerial agencies and commercial banks should be established so thatthe national pharmaceutical sector can be better developed, he said.-VNA