TEHRAN – Based on innovative indicators of health technology development in 2021, Iran was ranked 60th among 132 countries, which shows an improvement of 60 steps compared to 2014, the deputy health minister for research and technology, has announced.

A total of 1,670 knowledge-based firms are operating in the health sector, ISNA quoted Younes Panahi as saying on Thursday.

He added that there are 13 science and technology parks and 95 technology growth centers in the field of health, while 343 technological products have so far been licensed, and 335 inventions in medical sciences have been patented.

A total of 1,670 knowledge-based firms are operating in the health sector. The health technology development is evaluated by the Global Innovation Index with seven indicators, including institutional structure, human capital and research, infrastructure, market and business complexity, technological knowledge, and creativity, he explained.

Indicators of innovation in higher education, graduation, access to information and communication technology, indigenous infrastructure, gross capital formation, production of knowledge and inventions, scientific and citational articles, gross domestic product, and national industrial projects, are Iran’s strengths in the 2021 evaluation.

Referring to new plans to promote product sales in the health sector, he noted that the ratio of production of products and services to articles should increase 10 times and the ratio of inventions to total articles is planned to increase by 30 times.

The Innovation and Prosperity Fund has paid a total of 240 trillion rials (nearly $960 million) to support knowledge-based companies over the last [Iranian calendar] year (March 2021-March 2022).

Technology advancement

Today, the country's knowledge-based ecosystem accounts for more than 3 percent of GDP. And the figure is projected to reach 5 percent, however, the main goal is to step toward a 10 percent share in GDP, Sattari told Fars on February 13.

The share of knowledge-based companies in the country's economy has exceeded 9 quadrillion rials (about $34 billion), and since 2019, it has experienced a growth of more than 450 percent, he stated.

The knowledge-based ecosystem is a newly-emerged ecosystem but has so far been able to solve many of the country's problems.

The Innovation and Prosperity Fund affiliated with the Vice Presidency of Science and Technology has earmarked a sum of 170 trillion rials (nearly $650 million) to support knowledge-based companies over the past 4 years.

There are currently 6,263 knowledge-based companies operating in the country, offering advanced products and services in various fields of technology to domestic and foreign markets, and some of them have entered international markets, Siavash Maleki, deputy head of the Fund, stated.

The fields of aircraft maintenance, steel, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, oil, and gas are among the sectors that researchers in technology companies have engaged in, leading to import reduction.

FB/MG