“Currently 97% of Iran’s required medicine is produced by domestic companies and only 3% are being imported,” he told Mehr on Tuesday
He said that these drugs are classified as high-tech and their production needs state-of-the-art technologies.
Asked when Iran can produce these advanced drugs, he said that “we have plans to produce this 3% in Iranian companies by the next three years.”
Despite US sanctions on Iran, which were imposed after Washington unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, pharmaceutical industries have made impressive progress, meeting the needs for almost all of the required drugs in the country. At the same time, the very same sanctions have created some problems for some Iranian patients as foreign companies don’t sell medicine to Iran in fear of US sanctions. US claims that it has not imposed sanctions on medicine but, in practice, it is affecting the Iranian patients.
Foreign Minister Zarif said in early June that “Economic Terrorism against Iran targets innocent civilians. Like this little boy, whose heartbroken mother can't get him prosthetic legs as he grows. They're sanctioned.” His post included the video of a mother who says the US sanctions have made the prosthetic limbs almost unobtainable in the market.
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