The volume of medicines on the market is huge while the change of drug prices depends on the common situation so it is unable to control medicine prices, said a senior official at a meeting on April 20 in HCM City.

Pharmaceutical merchants deaf to ban on price increases

Officials from the Drug Administration Agency and the departments of health of Binh Duong were present at a meeting to collect opinions of management agencies about drug prices in hopes to submit to the National Assembly session this May. Truong Quoc Cuong, the Drug Administration’s chief, said that they are unable to control drug prices by administrative measures. Medicines are also traded goods so its price depends on the market.

Cuong cited an example in 2008, when state agencies took administrative measures to curb the prices of medicines. Consequently, many hospitals were in shortage of medicines because pharmaceutical firms didn’t import drugs, afraid of losing money.

Cuong also said that it is impossible to apply ceiling prices for medicines, though it is stipulated in the Pharmaceutical Law 2005.

He said the Drug Administration Agency is working on a scheme to set up the ceiling prices for three types of medicines as an experiment. However, there are over 22,000 kinds of medicines in Vietnam so it is impossible to fix the ceiling prices for all of them.

Pham Khanh Phong Lan, deputy director of the HCM City Department of Health, agreed with Cuong, saying at managing drug prices will keep the price stable, not fixed. HCM City alone has up to 4000 drugstores and over 600 pharmaceutical firms.

Some attendants said that some regulations seem to favor foreign pharmaceutical firms and this contributes to the increase of imported medicines.

Some hospitals asked the Health Ministry to print the retailing prices of medicines on the packing.

PV