A leading pharmaceutical industry figure warned that Iran faces inevitable production disruptions and severe drug shortages by March, as renewed UN sanctions under the snapback mechanism tighten access to foreign currency and strain supply chains.
Projections based on 2024 and 2025 data, compiled before the reactivation of UN sanctions on September 28, show a widening gap between Iran’s foreign currency allocations and the pharmaceutical sector’s import needs, Mojtaba Sarkandi told reformist daily Etemad on Sunday.
“The industry operates on two realities,” Sarkandi said. “While up to 99 percent of the country’s medicines are domestically produced, a significant share of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and key stabilizing compounds still come from abroad, mostly China and India.”
International sanctions have severely disrupted Iran’s access to medicine and medical equipment, according to the report by Etemad.
Although humanitarian goods are formally exempt from sanctions, restrictions on banking, shipping, and insurance have made it difficult for Iranian importers to pay for or transport essential drugs. As a result, hospitals and pharmacies often face shortages of life-saving medicines, especially for cancer, multiple sclerosis, and rare diseases.
Foreign currency squeeze and rising import costs
The government, according to Sarkandi, allocated about $3.4 billion in foreign currency for medicines and medical equipment this year, yet recent shortages in available hard currency have already reduced access to funding by 10 to 20 percent.
“Following the snapback, manufacturers and importers of raw materials are facing new complications with banking, insurance, and logistics,” he said. “The outcome will be clear: a shortage of drugs.”
Shipping and insurance costs, he said, have risen by 30 to 50 percent since September, while the collapse of banking channels has extended import timelines from three months to as long as six.
“These added costs, combined with the weakening rial, increase the overall cost of imported materials by about 40 percent,” Sarkandi added. “Eventually, insurers and patients will bear the burden.”
The shortages, he said, will likely hit cancer and biotech drugs hardest, a pattern seen during the 2012 and 2018 sanction periods. The import of cold-chain biological medicines is also expected to suffer as foreign insurers withdraw coverage.
The crisis has forced patients to rely on expensive black-market drugs or delayed treatment, while domestic pharmaceutical production struggles with limited access to raw materials.
Industry blames policy failures as much as sanctions
Another unnamed industry executive told Etemad that government mismanagement has compounded the impact of sanctions.
“Sanctions may explain 40 percent of the crisis,” he said. “The rest stems from policy mistakes -- delayed currency allocation, arbitrary pricing, and poor transparency.”
Producers, he said, face mounting losses due to state-imposed pricing caps while their production costs soar.
“When the cost of sterile water or aluminum foil rises by 50 percent but prices remain frozen, factories cannot sustain output,” he said.
He urged the government to inject funds into insurance organizations to settle debts to pharmacies, warning that without such relief, “the entire drug supply chain -- from manufacturer to patient -- could seize up.”
Health officials have pledged to secure the sector’s financial lifelines, but industry insiders warn that without dedicated payment channels for medicine, the shortages will soon worsen.
