Barakat Pharmaceutical Industrial Town in Iran’s Alborz Province has become the new home to Novo Nordisk’s first Flexpen—a prefilled disposable device for the delivery of long-acting insulin products—production line in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East region.
This is the company’s eighth insulin pen plant in the world.
“Operated by Novo Nordisk Pars, the subsidiary of the Danish pharmaceutical giant, the plant will meet 30% of insulin pen requirement in Iran in its early stages of production,” says Kianoush Jahanpour, an official with the Health Ministry.
“After the expansion, the company will be in a position to increase its reach to diabetic patients in other countries in the region and North Africa.”
According to ISNA, the first phase of the plant targets the production of four products, namely NovoMix, Novorapid, Levemir and Victoza. Later, the facility will produce long-acting insulin products like Tresiba.
The plant has the capacity to produce over 25 million insulin pens within the first year since operationalization and 45 million in the second year.
The opening of this production line would save up to €50 million for the country in the first year and more than €60 million in the following years without taking into account its probable export earnings.
Iraq, Afghanistan and other neighboring countries will be the first export destinations of the plant’s products.
Health Minister Saeed Namaki, who was present for the Monday inauguration via videoconferencing, said, “Today we are witnessing the inauguration of one of the most important projects since the Islamic Revolution with the joint investment of Iran and Denmark.”
“Iranian diabetic patients require 800,000 insulin pens per month,” the head of Iran’s Food and Drug Administration, Mohammad Reza Shanesaz, told Mehr News Agency.
“Procuring insulin is significantly foreign currency-intensive and is made harder during the difficult time of sanctions,” he added.
In 2015, Novo Nordisk, the world’s largest diabetes drug-maker, signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran’s Health Ministry to invest €70 million in the manufacturing of the pharmaceutical plant.
Novo Nordisk has been manufacturing in Iran through a local partner since 2002, serving about 700,000 Iranian diabetics through its manufacturing partnership.
“The long-term investment aims to transfer the production knowhow for the drugs using state-of-the-art equipment and supply the Iranian market with quality diabetes drugs,” the company president and CEO, Lars Rebien Sorensen, said then.
A large part of the 400 million diabetics in the world use Novo Nordisk products, offered by production facilities in seven nations, and affiliates or offices in 75 countries.
On June 21, Pooyesh Darou, the Iranian knowledge-based pharmaceutical company, inaugurated the first insulin pen production line in Iran at Pardis Khorramdasht Industrial Zone. The facility would produce insulin glargine 300 U/mL used to control high blood sugar in adults and children who are six years of age and older with diabetes mellitus.
There are about six million people suffering from diabetics in Iran. In 2019, approximately 463 million adults (20-79 years) were living with diabetes; by 2045, this will rise to 700 million. The proportion of people with type 2 diabetes is increasing in most countries, the International Diabetes Federation says.
