TEHRAN – Iranian-made medicine worth $7.5 million was exported to Russia over the past [Iranian calendar] year (March 2021-March 2022), an official with the Food and Drug Administration has said.

Biological medicine accounts for a major portion of the products exported from Iran to Russia, ISNA quoted Hossein Shomali as saying on Friday.

The pharmaceutical industry is one of the active and important industries, which during the past years has been able to meet the domestic need for medicines to an acceptable level with significant growth.

At the same time, one of the solutions for the development of the pharmaceutical industry, considering the large volume of the pharmaceutical consumption market in the world, is the export, he highlighted.

Exporting medicine has advantages such as saving foreign currency and thus facilitating the production cycle with the possibility of importing raw materials, it also can lead to the reduction of production costs, and on the other hand, it can encourage the manufacturing company to improve product quality, he explained.

He went on to say that the export value of the country's pharmaceutical items last year was about $60 million, which has increased by 30 percent compared to the previous year, which shows the 0.2% share of the pharmaceutical industry in export revenue among the different industries of the country.

Countries that do not have pharmaceutical production infrastructure or have a small share of domestic production compared to their pharmaceutical market, can be a good export target for Iranian companies, he added.

The value of Iranian pharmaceutical exports to Russia last year was about $7.5 million, which is 12.5 percent of the country's total exports, most of which were biomedicine, he said.

----------Self-sufficiency in pharmaceuticals production

The import of pharmaceuticals has declined in Iran by 91 percent, which shows the capability of the country’s pharmaceutical industry, Mohammad Reza Shanehsaz, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, said last year.

Today, all medicine used in the treatment of coronavirus are produced by domestic manufacturers, and if we wanted to import all the items, there would be a high exchange rate, he further stated, emphasizing that COVID-19 vaccine development indicates the pharmaceutical industry’s capability.

A total of 227 knowledge-based firms are supplying medical equipment for health centers across the country, according to the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology.

Iranian-made pharmaceuticals are currently exported to Canada, Japan, and Europe, Faramarz Ekhteraei, chairman of the Iranian Pharmaceutical Industries Syndicate said, emphasizing that 72 percent of the country's pharmaceutical raw materials are domestically produced.

Some 40 percent of the country's total pharmaceutical exports are biotechnology products, a member of the board of directors of the Association of Manufacturers and Exporters of Medical Biotechnology Products said.

Iran’s biotechnology products are exported to European, Asian, and Latin American countries, and Iran's technology can compete with other countries in this field, he further highlighted.

FB/MG

HIGHLIGHT: Biological medicine accounts for a major portion of the products exported from Iran to Russia.