After more than a year of implementing the National Strategy for Development of Vietnam's Pharmaceutical Industry to 2030, vision 2045, the pharmaceutical industry has recorded many positive changes, gradually affirming its pillar role in the national health and safety system. From ensuring drug supply, improving domestic production capacity, to promoting digital transformation and increasing the rate of domestic drug use, the overall picture shows that the pharmaceutical industry is going in the right direction, although there are still many challenges ahead to overcome.
In 2023, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 1165/QD-TTg approving the National Strategy for Development of Vietnam's Pharmaceutical Industry to 2030, vision 2045, with the goal of making Vietnam a high-value pharmaceutical production center of the region, ensuring people have access to drugs at a reasonable cost, while improving drug quality management capacity and completing the digital transformation of the entire industry. This is considered a guiding principle for the long-term development of the pharmaceutical industry in the context of increasingly deep international integration.
Deputy Minister of Health Do Xuan Tuyen said that the implementation of the Strategy in the past time has been implemented synchronously, with a clear roadmap and has brought remarkable results. First of all, the work of ensuring drug supply. The Ministry of Health has promoted administrative procedure reform, applied information technology in licensing circulation, and at the same time supplemented appraisal units to shorten dossier processing time. Thanks to that, the number of drugs issued and registered for circulation has increased rapidly, from more than 1,300 drugs in 2020 to more than 13,500 drugs in 2024. By the end of November 2025, the whole country has more than 23,000 drugs still in circulation, basically meeting the medical examination and treatment needs of the people.
Along with that, the domestic pharmaceutical industry continues its impressive growth momentum. The total value of the Vietnamese pharmaceutical market increased from about 2.7 billion USD in 2015 to more than 7 billion USD in 2024. Notably, domestically produced drugs currently account for about 60% in terms of quantity used and 46% in value, reflecting a clear improvement in the capacity and position of domestic enterprises. Currently, the whole country has 245 drug production facilities, of which 26 factories meet EU-GMP standards or equivalent.
Vietnam is currently in the top of pharmaceutical markets with the highest annual growth rate in Asia. Specifically for domestic drugs, production value has grown steadily over the years at a growth rate of 12-15%/year. The value of domestically produced drugs accounts for 70% in terms of quantity and nearly 50% in terms of drug use value. Domestic production capacity has covered 13/13 essential drug groups and 11/12 types of vaccines in the Expanded Program on Immunization. Vietnam also has 67 companies deploying the export of drugs and drug raw materials with a total value of about 312 million USD.
Drug quality is also increasingly tightly controlled. The rate of poor quality drugs decreased to below 1.5%, fake drugs below 0.1%, lower than the global average. Drug prices have basically stabilized for many years, the price index of drugs and medical services is always lower than the general CPI, contributing to reducing the burden of treatment costs for people. The rate of domestic drug use in medical facilities increased from 15–19% in 2016 to nearly 30% in 2024, showing that the trust of the health system in domestic products is increasingly strengthened.
Another bright spot is digital transformation. To date, the entire drug supply facility in 34 provinces and cities has been interconnected; the database of more than 50,000 drugs and raw materials, along with 68,000 pharmaceutical production and business establishments, has been made public, contributing to increasing transparency and management efficiency. Clinical pharmaceutical activities are widely deployed, with 100% of central and provincial-level hospitals and more than 90% of district-level hospitals implemented before July 1, 2025. Pharmaceutical industry personnel have also been improved, the number of university pharmacists per 10,000 people increased from 2.88 in 2019 to 3.3 in 2024.
However, according to Deputy Minister Do Xuan Tuyen, the pharmaceutical industry still faces many difficulties. The competitiveness and sustainability of domestic production are still limited; investment in research and development (R&D) is not commensurate; nearly 90% of raw materials for medicine still have to be imported. High-quality human resources in specialized fields are still lacking, while many international pharmaceutical corporations have only stopped at exporting or franchising, and have not transferred core technology.
To remove these bottlenecks, in the coming time, the health sector will focus on completing the legal corridor, promoting decentralization, administrative procedure reform, strengthening quality and drug price management. In particular, promoting technology transfer, R&D development and building modern production infrastructure, including biopharmaceutical industrial parks, is identified as a strategic direction. In parallel with that, continuing comprehensive digital transformation, building a pharmaceutical industry data ecosystem, and improving the capacity to manage vaccines and drugs according to international standards.
