Around 30% of the national medicinal needs are met through imports, said Rasoul Dinarvand, head of the Food and Drug Administration. “We have plans to increase the share of local products in the pharmaceutical market to 75% and reduce imports to 25% in the next five-year economic development plan (2016-2021),” he said at a press conference on the 2nd international IranPharma Exhibition to be held September 14-16 in Tehran. Availability of imported medicine is limited, but doctors continue to prescribe foreign drugs instead of local equivalents, and therefore the excess demand has encouraged smuggling of medicines, he said, IRNA reported. “The SMS-based system for checking the authenticity of a prescribed drug launched by the FDA will help the people in distinguishing between genuine and spurious medications,” said Dinarvand.
