Dr Dao Van Tu, director of the Clinical Research Center under K Hospital in Hanoi, said at the second forum on innovations in the health sector held some days ago that the clinical trial rate in Vietnam is very low in comparison with that of other regional countries.

Tu, who has spent 15 years on clinical treatment of cancer patients, said the clinical trial process always faces difficulties and barriers.

Many patients hesitate to participate in clinical trials. Some of them think that they will die anyway, so they become the ‘guinea pig’ to try newly invented drugs. Even physicians and medical workers also refuse to participate in the trials for fear for risks.

However, Tu said that this is unreasonable viewpoint. Clinical trials on humans is an important step in the drug R&D process. In fact, many patients who do not respond to traditional therapies could find opportunities to recover when trying new drugs.

While the number of clinical research and trials for treating cancers has been increasing rapidly in foreign countries, the figure is still modest in Vietnam. This is explained by the fact that the proportion of patients participating in clinical trials in Vietnam accounts for 1-2 percent, much higher than the 10 percent in other countries.

The second obstacle is the lack of human resources and facilities. To develop clinical trials, many factors must be ready, including people, infrastructure, material facilities, and clinical test supporting services, procedures for obtaining approval from the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) medical ethics committee, and knowledge recognition of both medical workers and patients. 

Many hospitals that do not have enough technical facilities may be eliminated. Domestic units still lack human resources to conduct clinical trial research.

Tu thinks that a clinical testing network should be built in Vietnam, which would allow hospitals help each other. The doctors participating in clinical tests can be sent to short-term training sources, while nurses can work as research coordinators. In the long term, Vietnam needs to join the international clinical trial network to have more development opportunities.

Joydeep Sarkar from IQVIA Asia Pacific said Vietnam needs to step up the science and technology application in data collection.

Previously, patients had to go to hospitals for clinical trials. But the current trend is that clinical research units use high technology to collect data from patients and don’t have to do this manually. He said that researchers can also use data from electronic medical records.

Linh Giao