TEHRAN – More than $4.3 billion has been allocated for importing medicine and medical equipment in the current Iranian calendar year that ends on March 20.

The sum has increased by 26 percent compared to last year’s figure of $3.4 billion, ISNA reported.   

This year, some 320 trillion rials (about $6.4 million) have been allocated for the health sector, an increase of 80 trillion rials ($1.6 million) compared to last year.

Knowledge-based companies manufacturing medications

Some 600 medical equipment companies are active in the country, producing around 99 percent of the medicine supplied to the domestic market. Medical equipment manufacturers in the country produce and supply over 10,000 types of medical equipment to domestic and foreign markets. Now, various pieces of laboratory equipment are manufactured at prices much lower than the same foreign products.

Iranian knowledge-based companies have succeeded in producing recombinant drugs which are mainly used for treating hard-to-treat diseases such as cancers, MS, hemophilia, and viral diseases.

Developing a system based on artificial intelligence (AI) that can detect breast cancer with 94 percent accuracy, manufacturing new medicines for pulmonary hypertension, coagulation disorders, chemotherapy drugs, and production of anti-cancer drugs titled SinaDoxosome, used in all types of abdominal cancer, Levofloxacin, used for the treatment of infectious diseases, Paclitaxel, to treat various lungs, and skin, ovarian and breast cancers, Doxorubicin, human papillomavirus (HPV) and ‘ibrutinib’, which is used to treat various blood cancers, have placed Iran among the main producers of medications in the world.

Medications such as "Cetrorlix Acetate", used for the treatment of infertility, drugs for MS patients (called Synvox), special patients (called Interferon Beta, Gamma, and Alpha), and hepatitis C patients (called pegylated interferon) are other examples of the broad efforts of Iranian researchers.

Medical equipment worth around $20 million is exported to more than 60 countries annually, according to Iran’s Union of Medical Equipment Manufacturers and Exporters.

More than 70 percent of medical equipment and 100 percent of normal hospital beds are domestically made.

Also, over 95 percent of specific ICU and CCU beds and more than 85 percent of operating room medical equipment such as anesthesia machines and other equipment are manufactured with cutting-edge technology in the country.

Over 60 countries import Iranian medical equipment

On January 13, the head of Iran’s Union of Medical Equipment Manufacturers and Exporters said that medical equipment worth around $20 million is exported to more than 60 countries annually.

More than 70 percent of medical equipment and 100 percent of normal hospital beds are domestically made, IRNA quoted Abdolreza Yaqoubzadeh as saying.

Also, over 95 percent of specific ICU and CCU beds and more than 85 percent of operating room medical equipment such as anesthesia machines and other equipment are manufactured with cutting-edge technology in the country, he added.

Yaqoubzadeh went on to say that the country's need for medical equipment production is three to four billion dollars per year, some one billion dollars of which is imported.

MT/MG