Objective
:
With
their
new and efficacious active ingredients, p
atented drugs have important roles in offering high
-quality healthcare. However,
huge cost
-related barriers in accessing patented drugs
along with the availability of low
-cost bioequivalent generics
have
great impact on drug
s
pol
icy
in Vietnam.
To understand situation of patented drugs
utilization at hospitals
for a certain period
, this pilot study was conducted at Nguyen
-
Dinh
-Chieu Hospi
tal in Ben
-Tre Province.
Method
s:
The cross
-sectional descriptive study was
conducted
on the retrospective
data of all
patented drugs
used
at Nguyen
-Dinh
-Chieu Hospital
in Ben-
Tre
Province
from 2011
-2017
. Characteristics of drugs utilization
were described by frequency and percentage of drugs quantities and cost
s.
Criteria for the description
were as follow
s:
active ingredient, route of administration,
therapeutic class
and manufacturing country. Data
were
extracted from the
hospital
information
system and were
processed by R
software
.
Nguyen Dinh Chieu
Hospital, Ben Tre Provinc
e, Vietnam
Emai
l: hoangthynhacvu@upm
.edu
.vn
Result
s:
From 2011 to 2017, there were 212
patented drugs used which related
to
145 active ingredients
and 20
therapeutic class
es.
88%
were
single active ingredient drugs and 49% were oral drugs.
Antimicrobial and cardiovascular
drugs
represented
the largest
number of drugs and the
highest
cost.
79% of patented drugs were manufactured by companies in Europe and
th
e majority
came from France and Germany.
Conclusio
n:
This study provided initial information about the utilization of patented drugs during a long period of time at a Vietnamese
hospital.
The understanding gained will aid medical managers in assessment and
adjustment
of the drugs list, thus, optimizing
the h
ospital budget and the
equity in access to drugs within communities.