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Imposing “sanctions on the
medicine market” in Iran
A) Financial sanctions
Although medicines were not included in Iran sanctions regime, as financial
and trade sanctions intensified and all ways for transfer of money through
banking system for dealing with foreign companies were blocked, the practical
outcome was scarcity of a high number of medical articles. At that time, none
of the big and medium banks in Europe such as Deutsche Bank, Lloyds, and
HSBC were willing to have financial exchanges with Iran’s pharmaceutical
companies. Even Iranian students studying outside the country could not
open accounts in many of these banks. Smaller banks such as Volksbank and
Sparekasse were not involved in transactions with Iranian businesspeople
either. This issue had put tremendous pressure on the medicine trade in Iran,
because foreign pharmaceutical companies could not receive any money
from their Iranian counterparts. Therefore, before long, major pharmaceutical
companies stopped sending their products to the Iranian market. The
second blow was dealt to the domestic medicine market in Iran when major
commercial companies involved in distributing medicines across the country
were put on the list of Iranian entities on which sanctions were imposed
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