Testimony of former Deputy Minister Truong Quoc Cuong

This morning (May 13), the trial of former Deputy Minister of Health Truong Quoc Cuong and 13 other defendants related to the sale of counterfeit medical products bearing the Health 2000 Canada label continued with the interrogation part. .

According to the allegation, during the appraisal process of 7 drugs Health 2000 Canada, legal experts ignored the requirement for consular legalization for FSC, GMP documents; Additional assessment is performed by only one person, arbitrarily corrects or erases the appraisal record, does not ensure consistency with drug registration dossiers and does not communicate with other experts.

At that time, Mr. Truong Quoc Cuong was in charge of managing all activities of the appraisal team but could not manage the appraisal results and let defendant Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy (former Deputy Head of Drug Price Management Department) , Drug Administration of the Ministry of Health) made many mistakes, leading to 7 ineligible dossiers but still being appraised and requested for registration number.

It is alleged that errors from the appraisal stage are one of the direct causes of the consequences of drugs of unknown origin, counterfeiting Health 2000 Canada labels imported into Vietnam for consumption by patients.

In addition, defendant Truong Quoc Cuong did not properly and fully perform the assigned tasks, so that defendant Pham Hong Chau (former head of the Drug Registration Department, Drug Administration of the Ministry of Health) and the standing drug registration department. there are many mistakes.

Specifically: submitting the dossiers of two drugs, H2K Ciprofloxacin and H2K Levofloxacin, for early evaluation before nearly 1,000 other drug records that were not in accordance with regulations, showing a preference without a valid reason for Vimedimex Company;

Adding illegal documents to the file of 2 drugs H2K Ciprofloxacin and H2K Levofloxacin after the expert team asked not to issue registration numbers.

Defendant Thuy even wrote and corrected the appraisal minutes from “not granting” to “adding documents”, to then conclude for additional records, not ensuring the principle of collective work, customers assessment team.

The indictment said that defendant Truong Quoc Cuong failed to detect errors in the appraisal minutes when authorized by the Chairman of the Council to preside over the review of 5 drugs: Extrafovir; Kaderox-250; Kafotax-1000; MGP Axinex-1000 and MGP Mosinase-625; or join as the Standing Vice Chairman of the Review Board of 2 drugs H2K Ciprofloxacin and H2K Levofloxacin.

The defendant did not carefully check and control the approved list of drugs before submitting to the Ministry’s leadership for review and before signing the decision to grant a registration number, so he did not discover the records of drugs bearing the Health 2000 Canada label. eligible for registration number.

As a result, 7 fake drug records with Health 2000 Canada labels were approved, and registration numbers were granted for 6/7 of the above drugs to be imported into Vietnam to treat patients.

When “the thing is over”, despite receiving many warnings from many sources, Mr. Truong Quoc Cuong did not decide to suspend circulation or recall drugs of unknown origin, counterfeiting the imported Health 2000 Canada label. .

This leads to the consequences that after 11/21/2014, 4 counterfeit medicines labeled Health 2000 Canada, of unknown origin were still provided to pharmaceutical business units, medical facilities for sale, used to treat patients.

Take responsibility for the leader

Answering interrogation in court, former Deputy Minister Truong Quoc Cuong admitted that he had held the position of Director of the Drug Administration of Vietnam since the end of 2007. There were also errors in the evaluation and approval of circulation permits for 7 types of counterfeit drugs with labels. Health 2000 Canada occurs since 2009.

The defendant claimed responsibility for the head but said that, due to the new regulation, the defendant was not informed about the incident, so he did not know.

“The incident happened, unfortunately I was not reported… More than 10 years ago, I was the one who directed the verification of the incident, but the feedback was not clear. The functional departments do not have any consulting rooms”, the defendant’s testimony.

The chairman continued: “If cautious, the defendant must report to the Minister, specialized agencies. Defendant was very indifferent…”

The interrogation process of former Deputy Minister Truong Quoc Cuong, the judge presiding over the trial, said that the drug evaluation process at the Ministry of Health had a big gap. Drug evaluation that is very simple. “This case was discovered, but I believe there are many such cases,” said the judge.

T.Velvet