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.
Iran’s Supreme Court annulled the death sentences of Rezgar Beigzadeh Babamiri, Pejman Soltani, Ali (Soran) Ghasemi, Kaveh Salehi, and Tayfur Salimi Babamiri, five Kurdish citizens from Boukan detained during the 2022 anti-government protests.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported Saturday that Branch 39 of the Supreme Court reviewed the appeal filed by the defendants’ lawyers and referred the case back to the Mahabad Revolutionary Court for retrial.
In July, the Urmia Revolutionary Court had sentenced Babamiri and Ghasemi to three death sentences each, Soltani and Salehi to two each, and Salimi to one. They were charged with baghi (armed rebellion), moharebeh (enmity against God), and forming a rebel group.
Attorney Atman Mazin, representing Babamiri, said his client and 13 others were arrested after protests in Boukan and held in “very harsh conditions.” Nine others in the same case received prison and fine sentences.
Salimi was released in September 2023 after 18 months of pretrial detention and has since left Iran, while the other four remain imprisoned in Urmia.
Mazin noted that the trial violated due process — defendants were denied access to family, lawyers, and medical care, and some hearings were held without all accused present. He added that the alleged crimes were not legally proven.
Babamiri, who was arrested for providing medicine and treatment to wounded protesters, wrote from prison that he endured 130 days of torture, including simulated executions, electric shocks, and suffocation.
According to his lawyer, the Supreme Court cited procedural flaws and the lack of local jurisdiction as grounds for overturning the sentences, sending the case to a new competent court.
Mazin expressed hope that “the new prosecutor and court will uphold the law and ensure fair proceedings.”
He added that last week a criminal court in West Azerbaijan acquitted the same defendants of “terrorism financing” through medical aid distribution, though appeals on other sentences are still pending.
Amnesty International warned on October 16 that more than 1,000 people have been executed in Iran so far in 2025, many following unfair trials aimed at silencing dissent.
The rights group urged UN member states to take immediate action, calling the executions “a shocking spree” averaging four per day.
Iran’s current level of preparedness surpasses that seen before the 12-day war, Araghchi said in an interview published on Friday with US-based journalist Dariush Sajjadi.
“Being ready does not mean expecting war,” he said. “If you are ready to fight, no one dares to attack. I am confident the previous experience will not be repeated, and any mistake will meet the same response.”
The United States held five rounds of talks with Tehran earlier this year over its disputed nuclear program, under a 60-day ultimatum set by President Donald Trump.
When no deal was reached by the 61st day, June 13, Israel launched a surprise military campaign, culminating in US strikes on June 22 targeting key nuclear sites in Esfahan, Natanz, and Fordow.
While the 12-day war ended on June 24 following a US-brokered truce, global concerns over Tehran’s nuclear program grew even more complicated as 400 kilograms of Iran’s highly enriched uranium remains missing.
Tehran says the material was buried under rubble from US and Israeli airstrikes and is inaccessible but has yet to allow international inspectors access to the damaged facilities.
No nuclear weapon
Araghchi dismissed international concerns about Iran's possible pursuit of a nuclear weapon, saying the country's nuclear program is “completely peaceful and legally grounded,” citing a religious decree forbidding nuclear weapons.
“Our nuclear doctrine does not include nuclear arms,” he said. “We pursue enrichment because it is our right, not because we seek a bomb. Our atomic bomb is the power to say no.”
While Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon, the UN's nuclear watchdog argues that enrichment to high levels of purity lacks any civilian justification.
In 2018, President Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran (JCPOA), calling it flawed and too lenient. He then launched a maximum pressure campaign, reimposing harsh sanctions to cripple Iran’s economy and force broader concessions on its nuclear and regional activities. After his reelection, Trump intensified the same strategy.
Relations with the United States
On ties with Washington, Araghchi said the main obstacle lies in what he called America’s “hegemonic character.”
“As long as the United States behaves with domination and Iran refuses to submit, this problem will persist,” he said. “But it can be managed—we do not have to pay every price.”
He cited repeated failed negotiations as evidence of mistrust. “We negotiated, reached agreements, and fulfilled them, yet each time the US broke its word,” he said.
"In New York (during the UN General Assembly in September), there was an opportunity for talks, but they made completely unreasonable and illogical demands — for instance, that we hand over all our enriched material to them in exchange for a six-month extension of the snapback. What sane person would accept that? It has nothing to do with Iran at all."
Araghchi said "there is no basis for trust, though diplomacy is never abandoned. If the US is ready to talk, with honesty and mutual respect, Iran is prepared for a rational and balanced agreement.”
Iran will not yield its rights or tolerate coercion but remains open to any reasonable and fair solution that preserves national dignity, he concluded.
The call came after remarks earlier this week by government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani, who said “hijab cannot be restored to society by force” and that social values should be strengthened through cultural engagement rather than coercion.
“The enemy pretending to care about our women only dreams of removing their headscarves and seeing them naked, with no concern for their real needs,” Kayhan wrote.
The hardline paper argued that the establishment of the Islamic Revolution had “dispelled the illusion that unveiling represents progress or that hijab hinders development and talent.”
The paper portrayed unveiled women as targets of foreign plots and accused senior officials of “passivity and lack of cultural planning.” It said government institutions had failed to act decisively against the promotion of indecency by celebrities and online platforms.
“Purposeful norm-breaking now requires deterrent measures against those leading and promoting it,” the commentary said. “If Iranian women were properly informed, many would consciously choose the Islamic-Iranian lifestyle over Western models.”
It urged cultural bodies to include pro-hijab themes in school curricula, films, and television dramas.
Cultural pressure meets official restraint
Kayhan’s remarks came as Tehran’s Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice headquarters announced plans to deploy 80,000 volunteers to monitor hijab compliance across the capital.
Since the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police, widespread defiance of hijab laws has persisted, turning daily appearances of unveiled women in major cities into a visible act of civil disobedience despite recurring enforcement campaigns.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said the three countries sent a joint letter to IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi arguing that Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), formally expired on Oct. 18.
He said the letter followed a previous joint message the countries had sent to the UN secretary-general and the president of the Security Council, declaring the resolution terminated. “All provisions of Resolution 2231 have now lapsed, and attempts by European countries to reactivate sanctions through the so-called snapback mechanism are illegal and without effect,” Gharibabadi said, according to state media.
In their letter, the ambassadors of Iran, Russia and China wrote: “With this termination, the reporting mandate of the Director General of the IAEA concerning verification and monitoring under Security Council Resolution 2231 has come to an end.” The letter added that the IAEA Board of Governors’ decision of Dec. 15, 2015, which authorized verification and monitoring for up to 10 years or until the agency issued a broader conclusion on Iran’s nuclear program, whichever came first, “remains valid and constitutes the sole guidance which the IAEA Secretariat is obliged to follow.”
According to the three governments, “as of 18 October 2025, this matter will be automatically removed from the Board of Governors’ agenda, and no further action will be required in this context.”
Iran, Russia and China have maintained that the resolution’s expiry removes Iran’s nuclear file from the Security Council’s agenda and ends the IAEA’s mandate tied to it.
Grossi urges diplomacy, notes Iran stays in NPT
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said earlier this week that diplomacy must prevail to avoid renewed conflict and noted that Iran had not withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty despite tensions. He said continued cooperation between Iran and the agency was vital to prevent escalation.
Grossi told Le Temps newspaper on Wednesday that Iran holds enough uranium to build ten nuclear weapons if it enriched further, though there is no evidence it seeks to do so. He said Israeli and US airstrikes in June had caused “severe” damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow, but that the country’s technical know-how “has not vanished.”
Tehran and the IAEA have yet to agree on a framework to resume full inspections at the bombed sites. Grossi said Tehran was allowing inspectors access “in dribs and drabs” for security reasons, adding that efforts were continuing to rebuild trust and restore routine monitoring.
