TEHRAN –The 6th Pharmex international exhibition is being held in Tehran from July 4 to 7.

It is known as the largest international pharmaceutical industry event in Iran and West Asia.

Out of 500 companies participating in the exhibition, half are knowledge-based companies.

The exhibition serves as a platform to display Iranian companies' potential and expertise. It showcases cutting-edge achievements as well as innovative products.

Trade delegations from 37 countries along with their ambassadors are attending the 6th Pharmex exhibition, ANA reported.

“Some 71 percent of the country's raw pharmaceutical needs are provided domestically, Mehr news agency quoted Faramarz Ekhteraei, the chairman of the Iranian Pharmaceutical Industries Syndicate, as saying.

Iranian companies are highly proficient in producing effective medicinal substances and the country will soon commence exporting these substances, he added.

In addition to holding B2B meetings, a total of 100 educational workshops are planned to be held during the four-day event which mainly aims to boost the knowledge and expertise of the experts.

For the first time, artificial intelligence (AI), and robots will help the organizers to welcome and serve visitors.

Pharmaceutical Packaging Syndicate in collaboration with the National Food and Drug Administration, the Ministry of Health, Treatment and Medical Education, and the Ministry of Industry, Mining, and Trade has organized the event.

Pharmaceutical factories abroad

In June, Ekhtarei said, “Iran is planning to establish 16 pharmaceutical factories in foreign countries and is currently finalizing contracts.” 

However, the official did not provide further details on the target countries.
“Currently, more than 70 percent of the raw materials required by the country's pharmaceutical factories are domestically produced.”

Highlighting the country’s capabilities and potential of pharmaceutical factories for exports, the official said that imposed sanctions have posed many obstacles making it difficult to export products.
Once such factories are constructed, the true potential of the country's pharmaceutical industry, which is a step above manufacturing pharmaceutical products, will be demonstrated.

Medicine exports to increase

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is developing a plan to increase pharmaceutical exports by 30 percent in the mid-term, an official with the FDA has said.

“In the past years, medicine exports in Iran accounted for a small share of non-oil exports. However, over the past year, it experienced a growing trend,” IRNA quoted Seyyed Ali Maboudi as saying.

The official went on to point out that the exports of raw materials and pharmaceutical products over the past Iranian calendar year (March 2023-March 2024) were valued at more than 100 million dollars.
“The Food and Drug Administration is planning to double the medicine exports in the short term and tenfold in the long term,” the official added.

Given the impacts of drugs on the health of society in all countries, they are one of the most complicated types of goods to export as they require registration and quality approvals in each destination country, Maboudi stressed.

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.

MT/MG