Imported drugs must have one-year expiration date

VGP – The Ministry of Health (MoH) has recently issued Circular No. 47/TT-BYT which guilds the import and export of drugs. The document took effect since Feb. 14.

February 15, 2011 5:04 PM GMT+7

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Accordingly, imported drugs with expiry length of over 24 months must have a minimum remaining period of 18 months when they enter Việt Nam.

Imported drugs with less than 24 month of expiry date must have a minimum remaining period of 12 months when they arrive in Việt Nam’s ports.

For unregistered vaccines and biological medications, the remaining time of expiry must be at least two thirds of the period. Meanwhile, for registered ones, expiry date must be valid for a half of duration.

The MoH also stipulated that input materials for drugs must have expiry length of over 36 months before being imported into Việt Nam.

Drugs oriented from humanitarian aid sources must be valid more or equal to 24 months.

The Vietnamese pharmacy market is expected to expand 25% yearly and its total value may reach US $2 billion in 2012, according to the Viet Nam Pharmacy Management Department./.

By Hương Giang