On October 21, 2026, Prime Minister Le Minh Hung, speaking as a National Assembly deputy for Hai Phong, told a group discussion of the National Assembly of Vietnam that amendments to the Law on Pharmacy (Luật Dược, Law No. 105/2016/QH13, as amended by Law No. 44/2024/QH15) and the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment (Luật Khám bệnh, chữa bệnh, Law No. 102/2023/QH15) must make medical-device and drug prices public and transparent. That morning the groups examined a draft that also amends the Law on Children, the Law on Persons with Disabilities, the Law on the Elderly and the Law on Health Insurance, as reported by the Government electronic newspaper Báo Điện tử Chính phủ.
Foreign originator-drug marketing authorisation holders selling into Vietnam, medical device manufacturers and importers supplying Vietnamese public hospitals, Vietnamese drug and device import companies in the intermediary supply chain, and domestic producers that still import active ingredients or finished devices must map intermediary supply contracts and public-hospital price files so mark-ups can be disclosed under the transparency clauses the Government asked the National Assembly to write into the Pharmacy Law and the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment. No compliance date is set yet. Public hospitals and the health insurance fund would keep paying intermediary mark-ups the Prime Minister called unreasonable until those transparency and procurement clauses are in force.
What clauses did the Prime Minister ask deputies to write?
Deputies were asked to put mandatory publicity and transparency for medical devices into the Pharmacy Law and the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment, then into the decrees and circulars. Originator firms, he said, cannot sell into Vietnam directly and must use intermediaries. He cited Công ty cổ phần Đầu tư y tế Việt Mỹ: companies set up abroad buy and resell in a loop, so the price is already higher when the goods reach the Vietnamese importer, with tax evasion named beside the mark-up.
Domestic production still covers only a small share of demand. Many devices and medicines, especially originator drugs, are imported, and local manufacture itself imports inputs. A reasonable profit is accepted, but he said the State must keep control so patients, public hospitals and the Health Insurance Fund pay a price they can bear. Private hospitals, he said, already buy at suitable prices. Public hospitals do not.
| Channel the Prime Minister described | What he asked the Ministry of Health and deputies to study |
|---|---|
| Mass-market drugs and devices | Centralized procurement and tender |
| Specialized items | Direct purchase and price negotiation by the hospital, inside a defined framework |
| Access to the producer | The Ministry of Health, or its experts, invites manufacturing companies to negotiate, instead of a chain of intermediaries |
Who is exposed while the draft is still in group discussion?
The companies exposed are those whose invoices land in a Vietnamese public hospital or in a payment the Health Insurance Fund later settles: foreign originator-drug marketing authorisation holders, device manufacturers and importers, Vietnamese intermediary importers, and domestic producers that import active ingredients or finished devices. Deputies who work in hospitals were asked to comment on the draft clauses and on the decrees and circulars that would follow.
The speech names no turnover threshold, no product list and no exemption. It does not submit a standalone Law on Medical Devices: devices stay under Decree 98/2021/ND-CP until a later statute reaches the Assembly, and that study is not the text of October 21, 2026. In trade talks he said Vietnam will keep resisting arrangements that let foreign drug and device firms jointly control the domestic market.
What should companies prepare before any compliance date is set?
No article of the draft was read out, and no application day was given. The preparation that matches the speech is a file the company can show if publicity clauses are written in.
- Map every intermediary between the manufacturer and the Vietnamese importer, including companies established abroad.
- Pull the public-hospital price file for those products and set it next to the price at which the goods entered Vietnam.
- Split mass-market lines that could move to centralized tender from specialized lines that could be negotiated directly with the hospital.
- Mark the contracts whose mark-up would have to be shown if the two laws require disclosure of device and drug prices.
Continuous, per-jurisdiction monitoring surfaces a group-discussion text on the morning the Government portal publishes it.
What continues if those clauses are not adopted?
Until the National Assembly votes a law, the President promulgates it and the text appears in the Công báo, the Law on Pharmacy and the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment stay as they are, and medical devices stay under Decree 98/2021/ND-CP. This speech sets no fine, no new declaration duty and no application day. The cost the Prime Minister named is the one that continues: examination and device costs stay inflated, patients pay more and reach fewer medicines and services, and the state budget and the Health Insurance Fund keep reimbursing costs he called unreasonable.
Check whether Vietnam invoices pass through an intermediary before a public hospital, collect those price files, and brief market access before the next reading. Obsidian keeps the session texts in one jurisdiction feed.
