Tehran, Iran – Farah, a 59-year-old resident of Iran’s capital Tehran, formerly filled her autoimmune prescription with a Swiss-made drug. Now she relies on the Iranian‑manufactured alternative and worries that, too, will soon face scarcity.
“I switched to the Iranian‑made version due to pricing and availability,” Farah told Al Jazeira, using only her given name. “Foreign‑made substitutes may not be available later, and repeated substitution reduces their quality and clinical efficacy.”
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She is now preparing for shortages of the natively produced medication as well.
Damage from the war
Over decades, Iran has championed pharmaceutical self‑sufficiency, establishing domestic capacity to synthesize active ingredients, equipment, and finished medicines. Nevertheless, the sector remains critically dependent on imported key components, machinery, and specialty therapeutics.
Existing U.S. maximum‑pressure sanctions have disrupted financial and logistic pathways required for procuring medical supplies, inflating costs despite the existence of humanitarian exemptions.
Acute shortage situations have intensified following the February campaign between Washington and Israel against Iran, which devastated roughly 44 pharmaceutical and medical‑equipment firms. Iranian officials report that around 500 industry employees were killed or injured during these hostilities.
A flagship pharmaceutical entity, Tofigh Daru—owned by Iran’s largest pension fund—was subjected to missile strikes alongside dozens of other facilities.
“Our principal patient population comprises cancer patients and individuals suffering from chronic illnesses,” senior sales director Maryam Farahani of the company explained to Al Jazeera. “Certain compounds we previously manufactured were proprietary exclusively.”
The organization has since contracted an auxiliary production line to maintain basic output, albeit while the U.S. naval blockade and sanctions raise import expenses by sealing maritime routes through the Strait of Hormuz and obstructing air, rail, and overland transit networks.
Databases, servers, and century‑old hardware assets—capital outlays amassed over twenty‑six years—were obliterated by the aerial assault. Farahani estimates reconstruction could entail two years or more and tens of millions of dollars; concurrently, her research teams strive to safeguard institutional knowledge eroded by the wreckage.
Israel’s military statement released in late March asserted that Tofigh Daru was deliberately targeted because it supplied fentanyl to SPND, a premier Defense Ministry research outfit, alleging applications beyond sterile surgical anesthesia. Daru disputes this, emphasizing the production of citrate‑salt fentanyl alone for sanctioned analgesia and the manufacture of glatiramer acetate, an injection intended for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis—a agent formerly dominated worldwide by Israel’s Teva prior to generic equivalents.
“It is deeply lamentable that research and infrastructure dispersed across Iran have been deliberately attacked, hindering national progress,” Farahani concluded.
Officials play down crisis
Amid accelerating difficulties, Iranian authorities publicly assert the pharmaceutical industry—mirroring resilience observed in other economic sectors—is refraining from total collapse under sustained external coercion.
“Adversaries have identified medicine as a strategic vulnerability and seek to undermine Iran’s standing via aggressive publicity, sabotaging narrative control on press platforms and social media,” stated Mahdi Pirsalehi, chief of the Iranian Food and Drug Administration, during the inaugural hours of a three‑day pharmaceutical exhibition held inside Tehran’s Iran Mall complex.
He pointed out that drug unavailability has reportedly eased compared to the preceding year, though no verifiable figures were provided to corroborate this claim.
Pirsalehi highlighted that two major manufacturers decimated by U.S. and Israeli retaliation—including Tofigh Daru—participated in the B2B expository forum labeled Pharmex. Attendance comprised predominantly Iranian enterprises, with minor representation from Chinese and other overseas counterparts.
Despite official optimism, physicians in Tehran warn that public‑health threats from the medication crunch—encompassing vaccines—remain paramount.
A gastroenterology specialist and university professor, speaking on confidentiality, described the dramatic surge in pricing, even for domestically produced generics, as “shockingly unsustainable” and argued that such rates serve as an insurmountable obstacle for countless vulnerable citizens.
He linked these grievances to systemic failures: the gradual removal of subsidized foreign currency for medical imports combined with multi‑quadrillion rial outstanding balances owed by insurers to pharmacies—approximately eight quadrillion rials (≈ $3.56 billion).
“Reports conveying a suspension of rotavirus vaccine deliveries due to the maritime blockade—and prospective complications for influenza immunizations—took on a serious and alarming tone, threatening nationwide vaccination‑related disease prevention initiatives.”
The physician warned that the deteriorating climate endangers specifically at‑risk cohorts—infants, children, and pregnant women—spurring malnourishment and raising susceptibility to both infectious and chronic diseases, thereby engaging an escalatory cycle wherein nutritional deficiency perpetuates further decline.”
