Importing fake cancer drugs, former director of VN Pharma appears in court
As scheduled, on August 21, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court will open the first instance trial of the case of counterfeiting seals and documents of organizations and smuggling that occurred at VN Pharma Joint Stock Company.
Nine defendants will be brought to trial, including
- Nguyen Minh Hung (former Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of VN Pharma Joint Stock Company)
- Nguyen Tri Nhat, Ngo Anh Quoc (both former deputy directors of VN Pharma)
- Pham Anh Kiet (General Director of Sapharco Pharmaceutical Company)
- Vo Manh Cuong (Director of H&C International Maritime Trading Company Limited).
The remaining 4 defendants were former employees of VN Pharma company.
Cancer drugs are not approved for use in humans.
The case originated when VN Pharma company imported more than 9,000 boxes of H-Capita 500mg, a cancer drug.
Due to suspicions about the origin of imported drugs, the Department of Drug Administration of the Ministry of Health requested Nguyen Minh Hung and Vo Manh Cuong to explain, and at the same time inspected and examined VN Pharma company and sealed it, not allowing the sale of this drug to the market.
Initial investigation results show that in 2013, Nguyen Minh Hung ordered Vo Manh Cuong to buy modern medicine labeled by Helix Canada to sell and bid to supply to hospitals in Vietnam, including H-Capita 500mg Caplet.
Due to the lack of technical documents for the drug as well as standards and methods for drug testing to submit to the Drug Administration for appraisal according to regulations of the Ministry of Health, Nguyen Minh Hung directed two employees to write technical documents for the drug H-Capita 500mg to legalize the documents submitted to the Drug Administration for issuance of import license and drug circulation registration.
Based on the documents provided by VN Pharma, the Drug Administration Department approved the import of the above order. In April 2014, VN Pharma opened a customs declaration to import more than 9,000 boxes of H-Capita 500mg medicine to Vietnam.
The Ministry of Health's appraisal conclusion shows that the above batch of H-Capita 500mg contains 97% of the active ingredient capecitabine - a drug of unknown origin, poor quality, and cannot be used as a medicine for humans.
Although he was the one who ordered the drugs to sell to VN Pharma, defendant Vo Manh Cuong claimed he did not know where the above batch of drugs was produced.
The investigation showed that the drugs were stamped from India to Singapore, then imported to Vietnam. However, the barcode and code printed on the drug packaging were not registered by any country. The drug quality certificates were all fake.
The investigation and judicial commission results showed that no company had registered its business as the documents VN Pharma submitted to the Drug Administration. The investigation agency determined that more than 9,000 boxes of H-Capita 500mg were of unknown origin.
In addition to falsifying the H-Capita 500mg drug records, from 2012 to 2014, Nguyen Minh Hung also directed his employees to hire pharmacists to edit many other drug records, forging the seal and signatures of the director and employees of Helix Canada company so that VN Pharma could register the drug for circulation.
At the same time, apply for an import license at the Drug Administration Department. Forge a drug purchase contract with Austin Hong Kong company to carry out import procedures for a number of drug batches (H2K- Levofloxacin, H2K-Ciprofloxacin)...
The value of smuggled goods is more than 5 billion VND.
Commission for doctors
The indictment shows that Ngo Anh Quoc (deputy general director of VN Pharma) directed employees to pay commissions to doctors at the hospital so that the doctors would prescribe drugs imported by VN Pharma to patients.
During the investigation, Ngo Anh Quoc submitted to the investigating agency a number of receipts for payments to sales staff to cover expenses for doctors at hospitals where VN Pharma provided drugs. The total amount of these invoices was about 7.5 billion VND.
During the investigation, the defendants all confessed that the purpose of inflating drug prices on drug import contracts was to get money to cover the cost of selling drugs to hospitals.
These expenses do not have valid invoices or documents. This amount is also not shown in VN Pharma's company books.
The defendants' statements showed that VN Pharma company deposited money in the bank to get savings books, then used the savings books to create fake personal loan contracts to legalize the amount of money used to inflate drug prices.
This money was used to pay "commissions" to doctors to sell medicine to hospitals under the direction of Nguyen Minh Hung.
The investigation agency determined that the above behavior had signs of tax evasion.
However, because the incident happened a long time ago, the imported drugs were consumed, the security investigation agency did not collect complete documents, so there were no conditions to investigate and clarify the amount of money in each specific case to conclude.
The trial is expected to last 8 days./.
According to tuoitre