What to read after Vietnam Healthcare Report?

Over the course of several weeks in June and July of 2014, Rubicon Strategy Group conducted close to forty interviews with country managers of pharmaceutical and device companies, director level administrators in public and private hospitals, successful pharmacy and medical device shop owners, and entrepreneurs at the forefront of the cutting edge in the Vietnam healthcare market. In addition the team went out and conducted a validated survey questionnaire of consumers to judge their preference for particular products, and their preference for healthcare access options in the public and the private sector.

The goal of this paper revealed itself in the course of compiling the data: to bring out insights from the front lines of the sales channels and the business models that make up the pharmaceutical and medical device markets in Vietnam. It is the hope of the authors that the information presented in this way can help inform sales strategies and the development of value add services for companies involved in the marketing and/or distribution of drug and medical device products in Vietnam.

On the eve of a pair of large negotiations, - a free trade agreement negotiation between the EU and Vietnam, set to be finalized in October 2014, and the negotiation of the Trans Pacific Asean partnership – it was found that much of the conversation with healthcare system company representatives and sales channel participants turned to the issue of the public tender system as well as some of the hardships brought on by Vietnam’s ongoing healthcare market reform. Consequently, one section of this report is geared towards exploring how the policy and regulatory level challenges of the current tender process. However, in constructing this section it became clear that the value of the research conducted during this study is not simply in explaining the tender process as it is supposed to function at the policy level and the attendant issues that stem from that design, but also highlighting how the tender process impacts the decision making of pharmaceutical and medical device executives in-country, in real time, as well as how it impacts the various operators across sales channels. In other words, a core value of the study is necessarily attendant to its exploration of the strategies currently being employed by executives active in Vietnam’s healthcare market.

In trying to present a picture of the ground-level impacts of policies and regulatory structures impacting Vietnam’s healthcare space, it is of course important to present a clear outline of the issues that the research revealed. At the same time, it became apparent to fully communicate the ground-level happenings as they related to the tender process, it was also helpful to present a series of case studies that would help add color and nuance to the issues clearly presented.