Vietnam added a factory to produce international standard antibiotics

This is the second factory of Hau Giang Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company (DHG Pharma) that meets strict international standards, after the Non-Betalactam factory that was certified with EU-GMP and Japan GMP previously. The factory is designed to separate the production and storage areas of penicillin and cephalosporin antibiotics to control the risk of cross-contamination. Two qualified factories help businesses expand production capacity and supply more than 5.2 billion product units to the market in 2024.

Speaking at the announcement ceremony on December 22, Prof. Dr. Tran Viet Hung, Director of Ho Chi Minh City Drug Testing Institute, said that the enterprise simultaneously meets EU-GMP and Japan GMP standards, reflecting the progress of Vietnam’s pharmaceutical industry in the process of approaching international standards. Currently, the country has about 25-26 establishments meeting EU-GMP standards – one of the most stringent quality management systems today.

According to Mr. Hung, these standards help businesses improve their position in hospital bidding packages and expand the list of high-quality drugs, creating conditions for patients to access domestic drugs with the same quality as imported drugs at a more reasonable cost. This is also the foundation for businesses to continue investing in research and development of specialized drug lines and bringing Vietnamese pharmaceutical brands to the international market.

Associate Professor, Dr. Le Van Truyen, former Deputy Minister of Health, senior pharmacology expert, said that the factory contributes to increasing the autonomy of domestic drug supply, especially routine treatment drugs at hospitals. With a capacity of more than 700 million units of antibiotics per year, the factory helps expand the list of domestic drugs that meet international standards, capable of replacing imported drugs.

According to him, in the context of the increasing risk of antibiotic resistance, domestically produced betalactam antibiotics that meet international standards, with reasonable prices, will play an important role in treatment and protecting public health.

Mr. Osamu Fujimori, CEO of DHG Pharma, said the business chose to pursue EU-GMP, a standard considered the most rigorous in pharmaceutical production, to help the health system and consumers easily identify and choose drugs of international quality. The Betalactam factory will be started in 2022 and upgraded to EU-GMP standards from 2023, a step that continues the business’s 51-year development process, towards global standards.