Vietnam Mulls over Setup of Interagency Council for Medicine Price Management

The Vietnamese government should set up an interagency council to manage medicine prices to curb rising prices, the Ministry of Health said in its amended draft law on pharmaceutical submitted to the National Assembly recently. The council involving the ministries of Health, Finance, Industry and Trade, Planning and Investment and the social insurance agency will work with other agencies to consult and build mechanism and policies on controlling drug prices. As planned, the chairman of the council will be the Finance Minister and the vice chairmen will be the leaders of the other agencies. The Health Ministry will be responsible for professional management in order to ensure sufficient medicines to patients and the council will be in charge of controlling drug prices to avoid the overlapping of responsibilities among agencies. Under the draft, drug prices will also be managed under the market mechanism. Currently, the management of medicine prices remains ineffective due to numerous legal loopholes. There are also monthly price hikes due to higher costs of input such as power, petrol and transport fees, experts said. Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien remarked that medicine costs 10% to 20% more than its listed price, especially at hospitals due to the collusion between drug makers and doctors, who earn a commission for the medicine they prescribe. If the government does not take drastic measures to tighten control over medicine prices, the pharmaceutical market will be chaotic and cause more burdens on patients. (http://baodientu.chinhphu.vn June 8)