The Pharmacy Law would be revised along the line of concretizing the State’s pharmaceutical policy, orientating the development of the pharmaceutical industry and amending regulations on management of drug prices and trading.
This was announced by Truong Quoc Cuong, director of the Ministry of Health’s Drug Administration, at a recent meeting.
According to the draft revised law, investment would be made so as to develop technologies for preparing generic drugs, vaccines and herbal medications; build bioequivalence assessment labs and pharmaceutical research centers to develop new drugs or conduct technology transfer and licensed production. Meanwhile, appropriate policies would be adopted to ensure safe and effective use of drugs and promote clinical pharmacy and pharmacovigilance sub-sectors.
Regarding the development of the pharmacy industry, the draft provides that priority would be given to the production of pharmaceutical materials from domestically available sources, generic drugs, vaccines, curative bioproducts and herbal drugs; growing of medicinal plants and preservation of genetic resources of rare and precious medicinal plant varieties.
To strictly control drug prices, several measures would be taken, ranging from organizing drug procurement biddings to requiring price declaration, negotiation, valorization and listing. Additionally, responsibilities of each related ministry or sector for drug price management would be clearly defined.-
