TEHRAN- The homegrown medicine can meet the shortage of foreign products, said the acting director of the Iranian Food and Drug Administration (IFDA). 

Now, the Iranian version of many foreign medicines are produced in the country, Mehr news agency quoted Mohammadreza Shanesaz as saying on Monday. 

“Now we are only short of 20 medicines while last year it was a three-digit number,” said Shanesaz. 

“Normally, when it is announced that a medicine is unavailable in the market, it takes patients three to four months to believe that the shortage has been filled and they can now easily find their required medicines in the market,” he added. 

“In using our foreign currency reserves, our priority is on medicines that have no similar Iran-made version.” 

“The main problem, however, is that the foreign currency allocated to importing medicine is the same as what is allocated to other consumer products, but there should be a difference,” said Shanesaz. 

“If a medicine has both foreign and Iranian versions, we advise doctors to prescribe the Iranian ones, so that the patients have no worries about purchasing the prescribed medicines.” 

“We assure Iranian consumers that the homegrown medicines are produced under close supervision and with the highest standards. In addition, the distribution of medicines is also carefully monitored,” he added. 

In June, Shanesaz had announced that Iranian medicines were exported to 30 countries. 

“Currently, 120 factories in the country produce medicine and 70 factories produce raw pharmaceutical materials. There are also 56 distributing companies and 12,000 pharmacies all around the country,” he said.

In February, the then IFDA director Mehdi Pirsalehi said that 120 homegrown medicines came onto Iran’s market over the past Iranian calendar year (March 2018- March 2019), despite U.S. sanctions against the country. 

SJ/MG