At the conference “The development of medicinal herbs and national medicine products” held in Binh Duong (on May 30, 2010), Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan emphasized that three species needing preserving and focusing on developing are star aniseed, “Royal Virgin” (Crinum latifolium L.) and “Ngoc linh” ginseng. Three medicines from them are expected to be officially announced as the national medicines proposed and chosen by the Ministry of Health. On June 15, 2010, Crila capsule manufactured from Crinum latifolium L. was officially included in the medicine list for Health Insurance. We had a conversation with Doctor - Pharmacist Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram - Director of Thien Duoc Co. Ltd, who has researched and produced Crila.
Reporter: Dr. Tram, can you tell us something about Crila - one of three medicines selected to be national medicines by the Ministry of Health?
Doctor - Pharmacist Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram: Products selected to be in the national medicine list requires very strict conditions such as high treatment efficacy, safe for patients, made from scientific research works, high competitiveness and potentiality for export. Crila capsule has been studied for the past 20 years, from seedling selection, domestication, and cultivation on a stable plantation, researches of chemical composition, extraction, toxicity, pharmacology, formulation. Besides, Crila has been undergone clinical trials under regulation 371 of the Ministry of Health. Before allowed for nationwide circulation, CRILA had to be circulated in hospitals for a year with registration number NC04-H07-05 to monitor its treatment efficacy and undesirable side effects. On July 21, 2005 the Drug Administration – the Ministry of Health allowed Crila for nationwide circulation with registration number VNB-3391-05. Currently, the Drug Administration allowed Thien Duoc Co. Ltd to produce Crila at the company's factory that was certified under GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices), GLP (Good Laboratory Practices), GSP (Good Storage Practices) criteria at Nam Tan Uyen Industrial Zone, Binh Duong province with registration number: V1167-H12-10.
Since its birth until now, Crila has been believed due to its high treatment efficacy, reasonable price, suitable for workers’ income. Crila is manufactured from herbs, safe to patients and in fact, over years, no patient has given feedback that Crila has unwanted effects on their health. Crila was used by patients in countries such as the USA, France, Canada, and Bulgaria with good result. They have sent letters of thanks to the inventor of Crila capsule. Currently, we have received some orders for Crila from some pharmaceutical companies in the USA and France.
Reporter: At the conference “The development of medicinal herbs and national medicine products”, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan proposed four units (the government, farmers, scientists, and manufacturers) to set to work immediately. What is your opinion on this proposal?
The opinion of Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan showed the great interest of the Government in the development of Vietnamese pharmaceutical industry, especially in national products from Vietnamese medicinal herbs to stabilize medicine price, take the initiative in domestic medicine source, and serve the community health.
In my own opinion, it is vital to combine these four units to promote the development of medicinal products and create new medicines in our country because the Government has guidelines and policies for this plan. To have natural medicines with stable bioactivities and high treatment efficacy, it is important to have the help and support from the government to build thousand-acre plantations, as well as great financial support from national banks. Moreover, only when the governments coordinate with enterprises, then scientists and farmers can promote the development of Vietnamese pharmaceutical and create medicine sources in the country. Farmers play an important role in cultivating, caring, harvesting medicinal plants. They are the main labor force to produce pharmaceutical sources. Besides, scientists are important factor in researching and developing herbal medicines because they are researchers and inventors of new products for society and then their works will demonstrate the nature and promote medicines’ development. After researching, they got results and transferred technology to enterprises to manufacture new products. If there were not enterprises, the research results of scientists would only be kept in drawers without being implemented, and then no products for society would be produced. Therefore, I think, combining four units: the government, farmers, scientists, manufacturers according to Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan is absolutely right and should be done early to develop our country, then Vietnamese pharmaceutical industry created many new herbal medicines to boost the development of Vietnamese pharmaceutical industry.
Reporter: According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam has imported 90% of raw materials for new medicine production and 85% for oriental medicine production, can you tell me why a country exporting medicinal resources formerly has to greatly depend on imported resources?
When deploying the conference “The development of medicinal herbs and national medicine products”, the government has recognized the importance of developing sustainable medicinal herbal resources. It is a big serious problem that a former medicinal material exporter now has to depend on imported resource. According to the reporter Thanh Mai of People Newspaper about the development of domestic pharmaceutical materials, “The reason above inadequate problems happen is that the medical industry did not attach very great importance to the medicinal resources”. Some officials are not aware of the important role of drug mission such as cultivation, collection, circulation and distribution, manufacturing, test of finished products and raw materials for medicine and import. The industry has not done a good job of planning and zoning medicine production area, so the area for cultivation of medicinal plants is too narrow and scattered; organization and management systems are lacking in concentration and unity; task assignment among sectors is not reasonable; devolving each locality is not specific; policies are not adequate to protect production, cultivation of medicinal plants as well as domestic oriental medicines…Notably, there is no organization strong enough to direct the drug mission totally and uniformly from central to local. The organization of management apparatus and direction is weak and incomprehensive, so the coordination among sectors, levels and social organizations lacks closeness, leading to difficulties in the implementation of drug mission. Besides, there is still randomness in harvesting, collecting without protection, and conservation, causing extinction of some rare medicinal herbs.
Brand of product and brand of manufacturers are important factors in market economy. The issue of brand protection is currently not interested from locality to medicinal industry
Reporter: It is reported that you had just returned from India after visiting and working in the innovation and creativity program of World Bank and Vietnamese Government. What experiences can you get after this trip?
My colleagues of some institutes such as the Council of Science and Technology, Central Drug Research Institute, National Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Research gave me a warm welcome. This trip has left me with a deep impression of the country with 70 % self-produced medicines from medicinal herbs and now India has a huge number of exported medicines on the world market.
Since 1951, soon India had an institute only focusing on creating new products from medicinal herbs in the country. Indian scientists extremely economized and took advantage of old machines and equipments and improved them to meet the requirement of research. Therefore, India has made medicinal products with the price suitable for the poor’s income in the world.
Its institutes have strict organization and management systems, especially some divisions specializing in copyright registration to protect research works and scientists’ interest as well as their country’s. Currently, Indian copyrights registered in the U.S. accounts for large percentage. Vietnam should pay attention to this issue to protect the copyrights of the products generated from scientific research works.
Through this trip, India suggested we collaborate to research and produce anti-cancer medicines from Vietnamese Crinum latifolium L. I hope this issue is soon conducted so that this incurable disease will soon be pushed back.
Reporter: Vietnamese medicines, especially for incurable diseases mainly depend on foreign countries, while Vietnam has abundant medicinal sources, why do not we take the initiative in medicinal source?
India has recognized the importance of self-serving medicine for over 50 years. Our country now has 3,850 species of medicinal plants, 403 species of medicinal animals and half of 11,000 kinds of Holothurian and marine creatures have medicinal effects. With such a rich and diverse source of medicinal herbs, oriental medicine production would have been developed conformably to its inherent potential. However, our whole country just has 300 facilities producing medicines derived from medicinal herbs and most of them are run in small and ragged scale.
Reporter: How do you feel when your “brainchild” was born perfectly after 20 years of preparation?”
What makes me happiest is my product and my scientific colleagues in Vietnam and foreign countries who worked with me in the research of creating Crila capsule with high treatment efficacy for prostatic fibroids (benign prostatic hyperplasia) at 89.18% and for uterine fibroids at 79.5 %. Another joyful thing is that cured patients have written to me and informed me their treatment results with Crila capsule. Although this product was born from 2004, until now, I still keep track of its treatment results on domestic and international market to continuously improve product quality, innovate technologies to reduce price because currently, the price of raw material rises up to 30% but the price of Crila does not rise over 10%. That is the great effort of many scientists, my colleagues, and all staff of Thien Duoc Co., Ltd for the invention of a medicine with reasonable price and high treatment efficacy in Vietnam as well as in the world.
The aim in my research process is to find new medicines from Vietnamese medicinal herbs for patients in Vietnam and all around the world.
Thank you and wish you success.
Reported by Dong Huong