Novartis Vietnam Co., Ltd. held a conference on Thursday to announce its first import shipment, marking an important milestone in affirming the firm’s long-term presence in Vietnam.

Novartis, a leading global medicines company, has just inaugurated its new legal entity in Vietnam, Novartis Vietnam Company Limited, becoming one of the first multinational companies in the country to successfully transform from a representative office to a foreign-invested enterprise importer.

With the goal of expanding its local operations, Novartis invested more than US$6 million in creating the right conditions for Novartis Vietnam Company Limited, including a qualified GSP warehouse lease, additional personnel, enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation, and shared capital.

During the inauguration ceremony, Novartis announced the arrival of the first import shipment of Novartis medicines at a port in Ho Chi Minh City.

Upon custom clearance, the imported Novartis medicines will be delivered to registered domestic wholesalers in compliance with local regulations.

Novartis Vietnam Company Limited secured its license to import and export medicines to and from Vietnam on August 28, 2019.

“We strive to enhance the Vietnamese people’s access to high-quality, innovative medicines. In support of that we invest in strengthening local research and development capabilities,” said Roeland Roelofs, Novartis country president in Vietnam.

“And as a committed partner of the government, we are supporting healthcare system strengthening initiatives. Collectively these commitments contribute to the socio-economic progress of Vietnam.”

“For many years, Novartis has been known as one of the largest pharmaceutical companies by both market capitalization and sales,” said Dr. Nguyen Hoai Nam, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health.

“Novartis has made great efforts to develop early patients access to newly invented drugs, especially cancer drugs.”

Since 2011, Novartis has been a leader in conducting clinical trials in Vietnam across a wide range of disease areas, including dermatology, ophthalmology, oncology, respiratory, urology, neuroscience, and cardiology.

To date, the company has conducted 43 clinical trials involving more than 900 patients, 500 healthcare professionals, and over 50 sites.

Now that Novartis Vietnam has received the license to support clinical trial activities, all trials will be consolidated in the new company, allowing smoother operations and an expansion of the number and variety of trials.

Novartis works with the Government of Vietnam in achieving the health-related sustainable development goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 3.8 on universal health coverage and SDG 17 on partnerships.

The Novartis social venture Cung Song Khoe, which was formed in 2012, provides training for community healthcare workers and community engagement activities for non-communicable diseases, including hypertension and diabetes.

To date, the program has reached 1.1 million people in 1,900 commune health stations across 18 provinces.

In 2016, the Novartis Foundation and its partners, including the international nonprofit organization PATH, launched the Ho Chi Minh City Communities for Healthy Hearts Program to improve health outcomes of adults with hypertension living in low-income households in urban areas in Vietnam.

In addition, the pioneering program elevates primary health care (PHC) strengthening beyond the structured public delivery of services to involve communities and social entrepreneurship.

Novartis is collaborating with the Ministry of Health and other health authorities to implement the program from 2019 to 2021 focusing on community engagement, patient-centered disease management, access to medicines, and measurement and evaluation (M&E).

“We are especially impressed with Vietnam’s plan to become a developed economy in 2045 and it came to our thinking how have we planned to be a part of it,” said Alexis Serlin, head of the Asia Cluster at Novartis.