Mohammad Pirouram, who was speaking in the press conference on Tuesday in the first National Conference on Safety in Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Industries, said that among a total of 2,000 medicines produced in the world, 700 items had applications in Iran, and that 500 items are highly needed domestically.
“90 per cent of the raw material of 250-270 items of pharmaceuticals is produced domestically; the quality of the medications produced depends on the raw material and effective chemical compounds,” Pirouram told reporters. “Pharmaceutical industry is among strategic industries; there are 74 pharmaceutical companies nationwide with 51 others producing raw material, which constitute the conglomerate of pharmaceutical industries of Iran,” he asserted.
“Apart from this conglomerate, 200 companies are active in importing foreign medications and pharmaceuticals, whose total assets are five times more than that of the pharmaceutical industry altogether; this shows that the drug trade is a profitable business worldwide,” he added.
Pirouram confirmed the activity of powerful cartels in the pharmaceuticals; “Iran is not an exception to the rule; the cartels exert heavy pressures on pharmaceutical industry,” he asserted.
“Pharmaceuticals are produced through pharmacopeia, which is mandated by the world standards; the gossips spread about the low quality of domestically produced drugs are the plot by cartels active in the industry, while there is no such term as ‘low-quality medicine;’ the production of generic drugs would not communicate low quality,” he detailed.
“The general practitioners are officially banned from naming the brand of producers of pharmaceuticals in the prescription; this is however the case in Iran and doctors in hospitals and private offices often force using foreign items advertised as high quality,” Pirouram lamented.
The head of the syndicate also added that Iranian-made pharmaceuticals were being exported to Japan and Canada, with Germany clandestinely importing Iranian medications, with safely avoiding media reflection. On importing raw material for pharmaceutical industry, he held that the raw material should be imported from countries holding international FDA and EMA accredited permissions; “recently, imports of these raw material have been prevalent from India and China; however, a directive by country’s Food and Drug Administration mandated that the imports be made solely from countries with necessary permissions.
He denounced the adversary advertisements against Iranian-made medications as ‘a plot by cartels; there has been no evidence supporting the idea of low quality of Iranian medications,” he emphasized.