Stents now can be made in Vietnam

At her office in district 5 in HCMC, Lam, president, founder and member of directors of USM Healthcare, related why she decided to build a medical equipment factory.

“After many years of distributing medical equipment, I realized that Vietnam heavily relies on imported medical equipment and has to buy big amounts of foreign currency for imports. No one dares set up factories in Vietnam to make products domestically,” she said.

“So I began dreaming of setting a factory which makes products for cardiovascular interventions, such as stents for coronary artery disease treatment.”

In 2013, Lam met an American professor specializing in cardiac interventions who encouraged her to move ahead with her project. 

The professor said there are many talented Vietnamese working in medical equipment factories and they are praised for learning, diligence and skill. They are capable of accessing technology to make stents.

Also in 2013, following a MBA training course at Harvard University, Lam met Professor Nguyen Ngoc Thach, a renowned expert in cardiac interventions, and talked about her plan to set up a stent manufacturing factory in Vietnam.

Thach, who paved the way for cardiac interventions to enter Vietnam, applauded the idea and introduced Lam to American specialists.

Lam’s project got support from the Ministry of Science & Technology. USM Healthcare was the first private business to receive a VND40 billion investment from the ministry.

Lam also received support from HCMC’s leaders, who provided loans and set up a factory in the hi-tech park in district 9.

In 2016, USM Healthcare became operational and began researching and developing products for cardiac interventions. 

At Cho Ray Hospital, one of the biggest hospitals in Vietnam, XPLOSION, the first kind of Sirolimus DES (drug eluting stent) made by the factory, was put into a clinical trial.

Forty patients older than 18, with stable ischemic heart disease, were monitored for six months after the XPLOSION stenting. During the six months, the patients underwent a conventional regimen and DSA (Digital Subtraction Angiography) on the 180th day.

Prof Dr Vo Thanh Nhan from Cho Ray Hospital said at a national cardiovascular intervention conference last November that all of the patients who had the XPLOSION stent placement were clinically successful. 

The company will continue monitoring the 40 patients for another six months. It will carry out similar research in seven to eight more hospitals. The patients in the hospitals will be monitored for 12 to 24 months. 

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Mai Chi