Senior Expert: Iran Producing Most Common Cancer Drug

“Technetium is a radio medicine which is taken from molybdenum and is the drug with the highest consumption at the world’s nuclear medicine centers,” Dr. Mohsen Saqari, a Tehran University professor, told FNA on Tuesday.

He added that Iran is now able to produce Technetium.

“Iran now exports technetium generator (or colloquially a technetium cow or moly cow, a device used to extract the metastable isotope 99mTc of technetium from a source of decaying molybdenum-99) to many countries and if we can produce molybdenum, we will become fully self-sufficient in this area and of course, today we have had many successes in radio medicine production technology,” Saqari said.

Iran has taken long strides in producing different types of drugs and medical equipment.

Deputy Health Minister for Research and Technology Reza Malekzadeh announced last June that Iranian scientists had produced 22 biological medicine, adding that 97% of the country’s needed drugs are manufactured domestically.

“Our scientists have succeeded in the production of 22 biological drugs,” Malekzadeh said.

“Also, the capable pharmacists of our country have been able to produce 97% of the medicine needed by the patients inside the country,” he added.

Malekzadeh also underlined that cooperation between the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and the pharmaceutical industry has led the country to approximate independency in the production of different types of radio medicine.