Iran making advancements in biosimilar medicines

Iran is making significant advances in medicine production, especially in the fields of biosimilar and biotechnology drugs.

Unlike the more common small-molecule drugs, biosimilars medicines are important because they exhibit high molecular complexity.

With over 400 medical research facilities and 76 medical magazine indexes available in the country, Iran is looking to advance in the next 10 years to become one of the top 10 ranked countries in the world in medical research.

12 countries in the world produce bio-tech drugs, which Iran is one of them. 8-12 of these bio-tech drugs are considered very expensive. However Iran has the medical knowledge and facility to produce these medicines internally.

Biosimilar medicine technology uses proteins and monoclonal antibodies and nano technology. There are also 24 additional biosimilar drugs which Iran plans to bring into production by end of 2012.

Iran produces 95% of medicines internally. 5% are biosimilar, and 5% get imported. In Asia, Iran is top 5 as far as internally medicine production. Only country in the region that gets such a high amount of medicines produced internally.

Iran has also taken a big leap in medical research towards MS and its main treatment drug called Interferon. This medicine along with all other MS medicines also get produced internally in Iran. In addition 8 new medicines are being produced internally to treat hemophilia, blood cancer patients, cancer patients, certain skin cancers, osteoporosis, and certain female cancers.

Source: Press TV Iran, 20 January 2012