Iranian cancer nanomedicine saves $25mn in foreign reserves annually

Iranian specialists have produced a nanomedicine for treatment of cancer that has ditched the need to spend 25 million dollars every year to import the medicine from foreign companies, especially in the United States. 

Ahmad Pour-Ahadi, the director of the Exir Nano Sina Company, told the information center of the Iranian Vice Presidency for Science, Technology and Knowledge-Based Economy, said Iranian experts succeeded in producing doxorubicin liposome, which is used for a wide range of cancers, mainly breast cancer and leukemia.

The Iranian market was formerly supplied by an American company at high prices, with each vial costing between 600 and 900 dollars. 

Pour-Ahadi said the nanomedicine has reduced the side effects that were caused by consuming the ordinary type of the drug, explaining that by using a new technology, the medicinal substance targets and destroys only the cancerous cells without damaging the adjacent ones.

He said the company has catered to the domestic market’s demand by producing about 25,000 vials of the medicine each year and has even found markets for exports in Syria, Iraq and the Philippines.