Vietnamese
The National Assembly on November 21, 2024, passed the Law revising a number of articles of the 2016 Pharmacy Law, which is expected to create a legal corridor for the development of new pharmaceutical business methods.
As defined in the Law, pharmacy chain means a system of pharmacies of a pharmacy chain-organizing establishment, which operates under a unified quality management system under the same tradename. As required, a pharmacy chain-organizing establishment must have two or more pharmacies that have been granted a certificate of eligibility for pharmaceutical business, and must have a unified quality management system for application to all the pharmacies.
As for drug trading on e-commerce platforms, the Law prohibits retailing for prescription drugs, except those for persons subject to medical isolation as a result of group-A infectious diseases for which epidemics have been declared in accordance with the law on prevention and control of infectious diseases; drugs subject to special control; and drugs on the list of drugs restricted from retail sale. Besides, it is also prohibited to wholesale drugs subject to special control.
In addition, the Law bans trading of drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients not through e-commerce exchanges, e-commerce applications, and e-commerce websites with online order placement function.
Rights and responsibilities of foreign-invested pharmacy trading establishments constitute another salient point of the Law.
Accordingly, foreign-invested manufacturers of drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients are entitled to conduct wholesale, delivery, and transportation of drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients they produce, or order processing from or carry out technology transfer in Vietnam to, medical examination and treatment establishments, vaccination facilities and other health establishments; drug rehabilitation facilities; and state-run drug and pharmaceutical ingredient testing facilities.
They may also deliver and transport drugs under donation, aid, humanitarian aid, and disease prevention and control programs to benefit health establishments.
By: VLLF
