The event, “Pharmaceutical Outlook 2011”, is a chance for Indian and Vietnamese firms operating in the field and other related sectors to bolster their partnerships, said Anand Ramesh Mokan from Canopus Co – Incham host.

It is also an opportunity for Indian pharmaceutical firms to gain more accessibility to Vietnamese hospitals in the city, he said.

Incham has 42 member companies operating in pharmaceutical manufacturing and trading among 120 Indian firms operating in the industry with over 4,500 products in Vietnam. Many of them have started their business here since 1990s.

The city authorities will help facilitate the integration of Indian medicine into around 100 hospitals in the city, said Pham Viet Thanh, director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health.

“If Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers and exporters meet all the requirements of bidding procedures at our hospitals, we believe that the integration is just a matter of time,” he said.

“There is no discrimination between Indian, European and American pharmaceutical firms in applying for tender bid for medicine purchases at HCMC hospitals,” he told Tuoi Tre.

Indian-made medicines can help Vietnam reduce healthcare expenditures due to increased availability of Indian products in public hospitals, which will help the government of Vietnam to expand health insurance scheme to a larger population, said Kailash Patki, country director of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Co Ltd in Vietnam.

They will also increase the accessibility of Vietnamese patients to newer medicines for the most fatal diseases including HIV/AIDS and cancers, he added.

Indian-made medicines, meeting any strictest international standards, can be averagely 10-times cheaper than those produced in developed world.

Many EU and US pharmaceutical firms have been outsourcing their Research and Development (R&D) work in India to cut cost and make use of its talent pool of around 11,000 post-graduates in biochemistry and chemistry passing out along with 2,500 chemical engineers and around 4,500 pursuing PhD in science annually.

India has the largest number of US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved manufacturing facilities outside the US. They have been expanded overseas to US, UK, Germany, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Malaysia and China.

It is also the production base for world’s top companies, such as Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, Eli Lilly, GSK and Abbot. In NCE R&D, it has around 100 new molecules under different stages of development.

India is now the world’s 3rd and 14th largest producers of pharmaceuticals by volume and value respectively. It is exporting medicines to 151 countries and territories worldwide.

Its leading foreign markets last year were US, UK, and Germany with $1.8 billion, $264 million and $243 million respectively. Vietnam was ranked 12th among its top foreign markets with around $103 million.