Announcement of inspection of licensing for VN Pharma

The inspection team for licensing VN Pharma, consisting of 6 people, will work for 60 days and report to the Prime Minister before December 31.

At 9:00 a.m. on September 26, the Government Inspectorate delegation arrived at the Ministry of Health to announce the decision to inspect the granting of import licenses and circulation registration certificates for 7 types of drugs manufactured by Helix Pharmaceuticals Inc., Canada; and the winning of the bid to supply drugs to hospitals by VN Pharma Joint Stock Company before the incident occurred.

According to the decision signed by Deputy Inspector General of the Government Dang Cong Huan, the working group consists of 6 members, led by Mr. Vu Hong Khanh - senior inspector, deputy head of Department III (social and cultural sector) of the Government Inspectorate; the inspection period is from 2011-2014, depending on the situation, the time can be extended. The inspection will last for 60 days excluding holidays.

Previously, on September 7, the Government Office conveyed the direction of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, requesting the Government Inspectorate to carry out the above work; report the results to the Prime Minister before December 31.

Regarding this incident, on August 30, at the Government meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam stated his direction to "strictly handle all violations in accordance with the law and clarify all hidden corners".

Former Chairman of VN Pharma Nguyen Minh Hung. Photo: Hai Duyen

VN Pharma Company was determined by the investigation agency to have falsified import documents for 9,300 boxes of H-Capita 500 mg cancer treatment medicine from the manufacturer Helix Pharmaceuticals Inc., Canada. This batch of medicine was licensed for import by the Drug Administration at the end of December 2013.

In 2014, H-Capita won a bid at the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health at VND31,000 per pill, while the Department's planned price was VND66,000. Doubting the price of H-Capita after the bidding results, the Ministry of Health requested the relevant agencies to coordinate in verifying. The Ministry of Health's assessment showed that this batch of medicine contained 97% of the active ingredient capecitabine, which was of poor quality, of unknown origin, and unusable for humans. Documents from the manufacturer Helix in the Capita import dossier were also determined to be fake by the investigation agency.

The case was tried in mid-August, and former VN Pharma Chairman Nguyen Minh Hung was sentenced to 12 years in prison. On August 29, the Ministry of Health affirmed that VN Pharma was licensed to import the H-Capita batch in accordance with regulations, because it had complete paperwork and documents that were forged in a sophisticated manner, so at that time, the Ministry's experts could not recognize them with the naked eye.

On the afternoon of September 22, the High-level People's Procuracy issued a decision to appeal, requesting the court at the same level to hold an appeal in the direction of annulling the first-instance judgment of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court against former Chairman of VN Pharma Nguyen Minh Hung and his accomplices for smuggling cancer drugs.

According to the People's Procuracy, there are still many unclear issues in the case; there are signs of people and crimes being overlooked and need to be reinvestigated.

According to VNE