Vietnam Overseas

Scientists have discovered 11 new species of plants and animals in Vietnam, including a snake, two butterflies and five orchid varieties, the World Wildlife Fund said Wednesday. 1 of 5 The new species were found in a remote region known as the “Green Corridor” in Thua Thien Hue province in central Vietnam, the international conservation group said.

“You only discover so many new species in very special places, and the Green Corridor is one of them,” Chris Dickinson, the WWF’s chief technical adviser in the region, said in a statement. The new snake species, the white-lipped keelback, generally lives near streams and eats frogs and other small animals, the WWF said. It has a yellow-white stripe along its head, red dots on its body and can grow to more than 30 inches long. The new butterfly species are among eight discovered in Thua Thien Hue since 1996. One is a “skipper,” a butterfly that flies in a quick, darting motion. Three of the new orchid species are leafless, which is unusual for orchids, the WWF said. The other new plant species include one in the aspidistra family, which produces a black flower and can subsist in low light, and an arum, which produces yellow flowers surrounded by funnel-shaped leaves. “It’s great news for Vietnam,” said Bernard O’Callaghan, Vietnam program coordinator for the World Conservation Union. “The jungles and mountains of Vietnam are fascinating places and they continue to surprise scientists.” The WWF said all the new species are exclusive to tropical forests in Vietnam’s Annamites mountain range. It said all the species in the area are under threat from illegal logging, hunting and development.

Original Article

Vietnam’s pharmaceutical market remains chaotic and poorly regulated. After years of poor regulation and IP protection, the Vietnamese government has started to gain more control in the the administration of drugs in the market, particularly in the area of price control. The MoH has recently started a crackdown on firms that inflate the price of drugs without prior permission from the Vietnam Drug Administration (VDA), a requirement under the law that was passed in 2005. In 2007, the MoH has come down hard on 13 companies that raised the price of drugs without permission from the VDA, an agency under the MoH, and issued a warning that such firms risk penalties such as fines, or worse still, have their operating licenses revoked.

IP laws are still poor, and the Vietnamese drug industry, which has little R&D and makes mainly copycat drugs, supplies 40% of the market. The government is keen to encourage the local industry to supply around 60% of the market, therefore it is not in the best interests of the government to pursue IP laws as aggressively as price control mechanisms. That said, the country’s accession in WTO in 2007 and accordance with the TRIPS agreement has seen the country make strides in the formulation of IP laws and protection, but enforcement remains a problem.  The opening of the economy since the doi moi reforms of the mid-1980s has created a demand for Western drugs which cannot be met by the local industry. Imports, therefore, comprise a significant proportion of the market by value. European suppliers dominate, with the French at the forefront, due to their long historical ties with the region. US manufacturers have only been able to directly supply Vietnam since the lifting of the US government trade boycott in 1994.