HCMC – Vietnam will see its demand for pharmaceutical material imports to double within the next five years to some US$1 billion a year as local production is still undeveloped, the National Agency for Science and Technology Information said.
Phung Minh Lai, deputy director of the sci-tech information agency, told reporters at a press briefing over the weekend that “the cost for imported materials for medicine production will expectedly rise to US$1 billion a year from 2015.”
Lai, whose agency held the press briefing to call attention to an exhibition named Analytica Vietnam 2011 for technologies, analysis, biotechnology and diagnostics, said Vietnam last year spent US$480 million on imported drug materials out of the total US$1.5 billion of medicine import value.
Though Vietnam has set a target of achieving an annual growth in the drug-related chemical industry by 15%, its pharmaceutical chemistry is still undeveloped compared to the increasing demand for chemical products, the agency said.
The pharmaceutical chemistry sector is just able to produce some simple substances and limited types of products on simple technologies, according to the agency, which said the country would need to build six pharmaceutical chemistry plants by 2015.
Analytica Vietnam 2011 will be held in HCMC on April 7-9 next year by Munich Exhibition Company in collaboration with the National Agency for Science and Technology Information.
Lai said that the exhibition would be a good opportunity for both local and international partners to exchange information in the field of technologies, analysis, biotechnology and diagnostics. This is the second Analytica Vietnam exhibition to be held in Vietnam after the first one in Hanoi last year, which attracted some 75 companies from 11 nations worldwide.
