Novo Nordisk Sets Up Insulin Production Line in Iran

Iran's health minister said that the world's top insulin-maker, Novo Nordisk of Denmark, had unveiled on Monday a production line of the drug in Iran.

Saeed Namaki inaugurated the plant's production line, located in Alborz province, via video conference, the government website reported.

"Today we witness the inauguration of one of the most important projects since the (Islamic) revolution with the joint investment of Iran and Denmark," he said.

Namaki expressed hope that Iran could soon become a "drug distribution and production centre" for the Middle East.

The Danish pharmaceuticals giant has sold its products in Iran since 2005 through its subsidiary, Novo Nordisk Pars.

It signaled its intention to construct the 70 million euro ($83 million) facility in 2015 and said it would take five years to complete.

That announcement followed an agreement reached between Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States in the same year, promising Iran sanctions relief in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.

But the deal has been on life support since US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord and reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018, dashing hopes for foreign investment in the country.

Drugs and medical equipment are technically exempt from the US sanctions, but purchases are frequently blocked by the unwillingness of banks to process purchases for fear of incurring large penalties in the United States.

According to the head of Iran's food and drug administration, Iranian diabetic patients require 800,000 insulin pens per month.

"Procuring insulin is significantly foreign currency-intensive and is made harder during the difficult time of sanctions," Mohammadreza Shanesaz told Mehr news agency.

Novo Nordisk has promised to save Iran 25 million euros in the first year and 45 million euros in the second after production starts, he added.

Photo: Jalkeh

US Sanctions Threaten Iranians' Right to Health: HRW

Washington's sanctions against Tehran have drastically constrained its ability to pay for humanitarian imports and are threatening the health rights of Iranians, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last year and reimposed punishing sanctions as part of a stated campaign of "maximum pressure" against the Islamic republic.

Officially, the punitive measures make exceptions for food, medicine and other humanitarian goods, but most companies are unwilling to do any trade with Iran for fear of repercussions in the world's largest economy.

Trump "administration officials claim they stand with the Iranian people, but the overbroad and burdensome US sanctions regime is harming Iranian's right to health, including access to live-saving medicines", said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at HRW.

"The comprehensive web of US sanctions has led banks and companies to pull back from humanitarian trade with Iran, leaving Iranians who have rare or complicated diseases unable to get the medicine and treatment they require," she added.

The sanctions include previously suspended nuclear-related embargoes including on Iran's oil exports and financial transactions, with new ones added.

The US Treasury said they were imposed to make Iran's leaders "cease support for terrorism, stop proliferating ballistic missiles, end destructive regional activities, and abandon their nuclear ambitions".

In a 47-page report, HRW documents how the US-built exemptions for humanitarian imports into its sanctions regime have failed to offset the strong reluctance of US and European companies and banks to finance humanitarian goods.

Iranian patients have struggled with a foreign medicine shortage and price hikes for over a year both due to reimposed US trade sanctions as well as a battered economy with a free-falling currency.

Medicine importers get subsidised currency rates from the government, yet foreign drugs and medical equipment cannot always be found in state-owned pharmacies.

Iran produces 96 percent of the drugs it uses but imports more than half the raw materials to make them, according to the Syndicate of Iranian Pharmaceutical Industries.

It also has to import special medicine which patients with rare diseases require.

HRW called on the US to "get serious about addressing the harm resulting from its cruel sanctions regime".

Washington must create "a viable financial channel with reasonable requirements for companies, banks and groups to provide humanitarian goods for people in Iran," it said.

Photo: IRNA

Iran Parliament Approves New Health Minister

Iran's parliament Monday gave an overwhelming vote of confidence to President Hassan Rouhani's pick as health minister, after his predecessor resigned over budget cuts and criticism of the allocation of state funds.

Saeed Namaki was voted into office with 229 votes out of a total 259.

He had been appointed as caretaker by Rouhani after the former minister Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi resigned on December 3.

Hashemi's resignation letter points at "inconsistencies and not delivering on promises" by the government's planning and budget organization, semi-official news agency ISNA reported.

Namaki had previously served as deputy to Mohammad-Bagher Nobakht, the head of planning and budget organization.

The Rouhani administration and Hashemi had repeatedly been criticized for their allegedly costly plan to reform Iran's healthcare system.

But in his last speech as minister, Hashemi said the reform project had cost a fraction of what was spent on bailing out failed credit institutions.

 "The total money spent... is 164 trillion rials. (Yet they) spent 350 trillion rials on corrupt credit institutions," he said, in a video of the speech posted on Iran's video-sharing service Aparat.

Several unauthorized credit institutions, which mushroomed during ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's era, collapsed in Rouhani's six years in office, with the central bank rushing to reimburse lost deposits.

The healthcare reform plan aimed to reduce medical costs for patients and ease Iranians' access to medical services.

Speaking in parliament, the new minister vowed to carry on with the reforms and said that "no previous commitments will be ignored".

Iran is struggling with a sharp economic downturn as its currency has sharply depreciated against the dollar. The recession has been fueled partly by the US withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal last May and the reimposition of unilateral sanctions.

Photo Credit: IRNA

Foreign Drugs Rare Commodity in Sanctions-Hit Iran

"Talk of sanctions on Iran reemerged, and my essential medicine was no longer available," said Masoud Mir who suffers from thalassaemia, a genetic blood disease common in Iran.

Mir, 36, is one of many patients in the Islamic Republic who not only have to deal with their disability, but also the consequences of trade sanctions reimposed in August by the US, as well as a battered economy with a free-falling currency, a foreign drug shortage and price hikes.

His essential medicine, a Swiss-made anti-iron overload drug, is now rationed by the government and can only be freely purchased at exorbitant prices on the black market.

The same is true for other crucial drugs for treating multiple sclerosis, cancer and cardiac problems and even simple anaesthetics required for surgery.

On Wednesday, the UN's top court stepped in, and ruled in favor of Iran which had called for the US sanctions to be suspended. 

Judges at the International Court of Justice in The Hague unanimously ruled Washington should remove barriers to "the free exportation to Iran of medicines and medical devices, food and agricultural commodities" as well as airplane parts.

Official Iranian statements acknowledge the shortage of medicines and say imports of certain drugs are no longer subsidized.

"We are currently short of 80 pharmaceutical items," Mohammad-Naeem Aminifard, a member of parliament's health commission, told semi-official news agency ISNA.

"The government and insurers have removed the support for foreign drugs that have a domestic equivalent which intensifies the pressure on patients."

Iran produces 96 percent of the drugs it uses, according to the Syndicate of Iranian Pharmaceutical Industries, but imports more than half the raw materials to make them.

The double-whammy of banking sanctions and a collapse in the value of its currency make total self-sufficiency difficult if not outright impossible.

Battered Economy Hits Patients

For others with family health concerns, sanctions are adding to their burden.

Ali, an electrical technician in his mid-30s, was fired from one job for spending too much time on hospital visits for his son.

His next company went bankrupt, and his current employer, a Dutch-Iranian firm, is stalled because they cannot import equipment and has stopped paying staff.

He spoke to AFP outside the busy 13 Aban pharmacy in central Tehran, where he had been hoping to buy a medicine for fungal infections caused by his son's cancer treatment.

"They're not giving me any because of insurance problems," he said. 

"They said even if they could it's less than I need due to rationing. My son could die if his medicine is delayed for even a day."

Managers at the pharmacy, a state-owned outlet focusing on rarer diseases, declined to comment.

But others in central Tehran said there was "a notable shortage" in some anticoagulants, beta-blockers or drugs to treat blood pressure problems.

"The local versions are cheaper, but not as effective," one pharmacist told AFP. "Things will get worse if sanctions continue."

Many patients cannot afford black market prices and risk side effects from locally-made equivalents, the head of Iran's thalassaemia society, Meysam Ramezani, told the conservative Tasnim news agency recently.

Seven thalassaemia patients died in March alone, he said, blaming "either a lack of injections or low-quality drugs."

Who's to Blame?

Iranians on social media are blaming many people: the US for its crippling sanctions, government economic mismanagement, and pharma firms for skyrocketing prices.

Surgeon Hamidreza Vafayi said the refusal of international banks to work with Iran was the biggest challenge.

The United States pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions targeting key parts of Iran's economy including international banking ties and transactions in US dollars.

"As far as I know, there is no official statement on sanctioning medicine trade with Iran," Vafayi told AFP.

"Yet when we cannot have banking ties (with the world) we are in fact under an undeclared medicine sanction regime. The truth is that no company would sell us drugs now."

Thalassaemia patient Masoud Mir also angrily recalled that when sanctions were imposed between 2010 and 2016, pharmaceutical firms exploited the situation by hoarding goods and manipulating prices. The same thing is happening today, he claimed.

Medicine importers get subsidised currency rates from the government, but their names are not publicly available, making it difficult to hold them to account if drugs do not appear in state-owned pharmacies.  

"In 2011, they kept saying that there was none (of his drug) in the market because of sanctions. But I could just walk out of the pharmacy and buy some from a street dealer at crazy prices," he said.

"Not everyone can pay that, so they may face a slow death."

Photo Credit: IRNA