Four categories, and the channels behind them

01

Cardiac

The long game. Specialist-led, hospital-bought, and prescribed for years once it is won.

Cardiovascular disease is the largest cause of death in Vietnam and the prescriptions that follow it are chronic. That makes the category slow to enter — a cardiologist changes what they prescribe rarely, and only on evidence — and unusually durable once a product is established. It is worked through hospital departments and specialists, not through retail.

Sells through

Hospital departments and specialists

02

Gastro

The category that sells in both channels at once, and the one where price is watched hardest.

Gastrointestinal products run from hospital prescriptions to a very large over-the-counter trade, and the same molecule can be sold in both at different prices. It rewards a partner who can cover the two channels together and who knows what a pharmacy in the Mekong Delta will actually stock at a given price point.

Sells through

Hospitals and retail pharmacy

03

Surgery

Institutional buying, on the institution’s calendar.

Surgical products are bought by hospitals through tender. The buyer is a committee, the decision is usually annual, and the work is done months before the tender opens. There is no retail route into this category and no way to shortcut the cycle — which is exactly why a principal needs someone already holding the accounts.

Sells through

Hospital procurement and tenders

04

Skin care

The most retail of the four, and the one a pharmacist decides.

Dermatology products in Vietnam are largely bought over a counter, on a pharmacist’s recommendation, in a market where a customer will often describe a symptom rather than ask for a brand. Presentation, price and the pharmacist’s familiarity with the range decide it — which makes it the category where marketing, rather than registration, does most of the work.

Sells through

Retail pharmacy and dermatology clinics