National Assembly passes first law at 8th Session
On the afternoon of November 21, continuing the 8th Session, the National Assembly voted to pass the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Pharmacy.
With 426/430 National Assembly deputies participating in the vote in favor, accounting for 88.94% of the total number of National Assembly deputies. The National Assembly passed the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Pharmacy.
The Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Pharmacy has institutionalized 7 new policy groups to continue perfecting and institutionalizing the Party's viewpoint with the goal of developing the Vietnamese pharmaceutical industry into a spearhead industry.
Specifically, the Law supplements a number of breakthrough provisions to attract investment and further promote research and development in the production of drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients, such as preferential policies on administrative procedures when granting circulation registration certificates and import licenses; policies on applying preferential mechanisms and support from support funds for scientific and technological activities in research, development, clinical trials, technology transfer, and production of drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients.
The Law also has policies to maintain and reduce prices for some groups of drugs with transferred production technology; policies on digital transformation in pharmaceutical activities; determining the scale of projects in the pharmaceutical sector that are eligible for incentives and special investment support, and assigning the Government to provide detailed regulations to ensure feasibility and bring the State's policies on pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical industry development into life.
The Law also creates a legal corridor for new forms and methods of business such as: Regulations on the establishment of a pharmacy chain as a separate type of pharmaceutical business establishment, business conditions, rights and responsibilities of the establishment of a pharmacy chain, pharmacies in the pharmacy chain, notably the right to rotate drugs and the right to rotate people responsible for pharmaceutical expertise between pharmacies in the pharmacy chain; regulations on trading drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients by e-commerce, specifically, supplementing regulations on electronic means, types of drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients allowed to be traded by e-commerce; supplementing the rights and responsibilities of pharmaceutical business establishments by this method.
At the same time, specify the rights and responsibilities of foreign-invested pharmaceutical businesses in the law to ensure publicity and transparency in state management; expand the rights of manufacturing establishments, export and import establishments, and drug and pharmaceutical ingredient wholesale establishments to sell directly to a number of medical facilities, drug rehabilitation facilities, testing facilities, research and training facilities, and a number of other facilities; allow medical examination and treatment facilities to import drugs to serve the special treatment needs of patients at the medical examination and treatment facilities.
Promote administrative procedure reform in drug and pharmaceutical ingredient circulation registration in the direction of classifying drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients based on different levels of drug properties as well as circulation to adjust records, procedures, time limits for granting, extending, changing, and supplementing drug and pharmaceutical ingredient circulation registration certificates accordingly to increase the ability to access drugs early for people while still ensuring the effectiveness of state management, quality control, safety and effectiveness of drugs; supplement regulations to limit the issuance of duplicate circulation registration numbers.
Abolish the procedure for confirming drug information content. Strengthen decentralization, delegation of authority, promote the role of the Department of Health in recalling and promptly handling drugs that violate quality in the management area, ensuring safe and effective use of drugs.
Prescribe price management measures to comply with the Law on Prices and specific measures in drug price management are to announce and re-announce expected wholesale prices applicable to prescription drugs, ensuring that drug wholesale through intermediary levels does not exceed the announced expected wholesale prices.
In the working program on November 21, the National Assembly discussed in the hall the draft Resolution on piloting the implementation of commercial housing projects through agreements on receiving land use rights or having land use rights; the draft Resolution of the National Assembly on specific mechanisms and policies to remove difficulties and obstacles for projects and land in the conclusions of inspections, examinations, and judgments in Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang City, and Khanh Hoa Province; on the establishment of Hue City under the Central Government; the draft Resolution on the organization of urban government in Hai Phong City.