Amid the severe shortage of donated corneas, a strategic partnership between the National Eye Hospital and Vietnam Gen & Cell Technology (VGCT) – a member of CT Group, a deep-tech conglomerate – under a new public-private partnership (PPP) model in the biomedical sector is opening up new hope for hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese patients who have lost their sight due to corneal diseases, giving them the opportunity to regain their vision.
After waiting in vain for many years, today hundreds of thousands of people blinded by damaged corneas have received extraordinary good news as VGCT announced the successful transplantation of bioengineered corneas in humans.
It is estimated that around 500,000 blind people in Vietnam and more than 6 million across the ASEAN region require corneal transplantation. However, between 2023 and 2025, the Eye Bank received only around 300 donated corneas for transplant surgeries. In 2025 alone, only 188 corneas were available – far below the actual treatment demand. The persistent shortage of donated corneas has left many patients waiting in vain for decades.
Against this backdrop, the cooperation signing ceremony between the National Eye Hospital and VGCT, held in Hanoi on July 3, marked the beginning of collaboration in research, technology transfer, and the preparation of the necessary conditions to introduce bioengineered corneal technology into clinical application in Vietnam.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Ngoc Dong, Director of the National Eye Hospital, and Dr. Dang Thi Tuoi, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of VGCT, sign a strategic cooperation agreement.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Ngoc Dong, Director of the National Eye Hospital, said that the hospital has been performing corneal transplant surgeries for many years. However, the waiting list has remained extremely long because the supply of donated corneas has never been sufficient to meet demand.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Ngoc Dong, Director of the National Eye Hospital, delivers remarks at the signing ceremony.
“The availability of an additional source of replacement corneas will represent a major breakthrough for ophthalmology. With VGCT’s partnership, we now have the opportunity to access one of modern medicine’s most significant achievements – the development of bioengineered corneas for human application. I believe this collaboration will help elevate both the National Eye Hospital and Vietnam’s ophthalmology sector to world-class standards,” said Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Ngoc Dong.
This biomedical breakthrough was first announced by VGCT at the International Scientific Symposium on Bioengineered Corneas held on April 4, attracting considerable attention from experts both in Vietnam and abroad.
Addressing the signing ceremony, Dr. Dang Thi Tuoi, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of VGCT, shared that the company is moving forward with commercialization the product within the next few months through a tripartite collaboration model involving research institutes, universities, the Ministry of Health, and numerous ophthalmology institutions, including the National Eye Hospital, specialized eye hospitals nationwide, and partners across ASEAN.
“The greatest value of this partnership lies not only in contributing to GDP by enabling hundreds of thousands of people to return to work, improving people’s quality of life and overall well-being, and strengthening public trust in the Government, but also in jointly building research capabilities, mastering core technologies, and establishing an effective public-private partnership model between hospitals and enterprises. We hope this model will continue to be replicated across many other biomedical fields in Vietnam,” Dr. Dang Thi Tuoi emphasized.
Bioengineered Corneal Transplantation Brings Hope to Hundreds of Thousands of Permanently Blind People in Vietnam
With the support of Vietnam’s leading ophthalmology hospital, VGCT and its domestic and international research partners are moving toward serving millions of blind patients across ASEAN and around the world. So, what is VGCT?
Founded in 2018, VGCT chose the challenging path of developing biotechnology for biomedical applications. The company focuses on a range of cutting-edge technologies that have the potential to reshape modern biomedicine, including xenotransplantation (animal-to-human organ transplantation), CAR-T cell therapy, stem cell technologies, and cancer research and treatment, supported by other scientific disciplines within CT Group’s science and technology ecosystem.In addition, VGCT also has an Agriculture Division, where numerous remarkable research achievements have been made. These achievements will be introduced in future articles.
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