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exchanges for Iran and issued a special directive to exclude medicine exports
from anti-Iran sanctions. However, according to available reports, foreign
banks and other financial institutions considered such activities as costly
and risky and continued to avoid financial transactions with Iranian entities.
As a result, even after US Treasury Department issued general permits for
export of medicines to Iran, problems with financial transfers still prevented
exports of medicines to the Islamic Republic. Even now, several years after
the conclusion of Iran’s nuclear deal with the P5+1 group of countries, known
as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), this problem still exists
when it comes to transactions with European and American companies.
B) Lack of raw material for Iranian medicine industry
Of course, many Iranian pharmaceutical companies did their best during
the sanctions period to become self-sufficient with regard to production of
essential medicines, which were imported. However, available figures show
that between 40 percent and 90 percent of these medicines are still acquired
from outside the country.
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Iranian pharmaceutical companies obtained one
or some of their needed raw materials from overseas in order to continue
production of their products. However, after sanctions started, shortage of raw
materials needed by pharmaceutical companies caused many pharmaceutical
companies of Iran as well as the entire production process for medicines to face
major problems. For production of most medicines, Iranian pharmaceutical
companies import part of the rawmaterials they need from outside the country.
With regard to some medicines, they were produced jointly in cooperation
with foreign companies, because production of some medicines needed
more complicated technology in part of their production cycle. In this way,
Iran’s pharmaceutical industry was faced with a crisis for procurement of raw