Limits on Psychiatric Drug Imports from India: Is Drug Self-Sufficiency in Question?

Restrictions on the transfer of some psychiatric drugs from India to Iran, following the suspension of direct flights and the refusal of some Indian companies to load pharmaceutical shipments onto Iranian aircraft, have raised concerns about the stability of the drug supply chain.

According to the report of Ambassador Arjan, quoted by Iran's Salamat Medical Equipment and Drug News Channel, the Food and Drug Organization recently announced the establishment of serious restrictions on the transfer of some neuropsychiatric drugs from India to Iran. The crisis that has developed after the stoppage of direct flights and the refusal of Indian companies to load pharmaceutical cargo on Iranian planes. This event, beyond a one-time logistical challenge, has once again put the long-standing and frequent claim of "producing 95-99% of medicine inside" under the microscope of experts and critics.

For years, the institutions in charge of health in the country have been insisting on the proposition that more than 95% of the country's pharmaceutical needs are produced in domestic factories; A statistic that health economics and pharmaceutical industry experts have repeatedly described as an unrealistic number. The reality is that this percentage refers only to the "numerical number of items" or the packaging, tableting and final formulation process, not the complete manufacturing cycle.

The key links of domestic drug production are highly dependent on imports:

Active pharmaceutical ingredients (API): Most of the base material and synthesized molecules are imported from countries such as China and India.

Excipients: Stabilizers, flavorings, gelatin capsules and preservatives are imported.

Packaging and specialized equipment: foils, special injection glass, pumice and protective films.

Machinery and spare parts: production line devices, quality monitoring sensors and laboratory test devices under GMP standard.

Once imports of raw materials, catalysts, or packaging are stopped, the same "national" production lines are shut down within days; The fact that shows the dependence of the country's drug production chain on foreign countries is far beyond the official statistics.

India's refusal to deliver cargo to Iran's air fleet is the meeting point of sanctions, banking and transportation bottlenecks with the health chain. Previously, the defenders of the slogan of self-sufficiency saw the sanctions as an opportunity to rely on the inside, but the recent incident proved that even ready-made drugs or vital medicinal compounds (such as items related to mental and neurological diseases) can immediately become scarce in the country's pharmacies, just by a decision of foreign companies or the limitation of the transit fleet.

Creating such bumps is not a simple technical issue in the field of business, but a direct threat to patients; Patients for whom instability in the supply of neuropsychiatric drugs or special patients has irreparable consequences for treatment.

The necessity of realism instead of nominal statistics

Insisting on enlarging domestic production capacity and announcing high figures as an achievement, instead of creating psychological security, has led to hiding the real challenges of the supply chain.

As long as the pharmaceutical policymaker hides behind numerical slogans instead of accepting the reality of the global supply chain and its geopolitical complexities, it will not be possible to predict pharmaceutical crises, diversify supply routes, and secure strategic reserves of basic materials.

The recent incident on the Delhi-Tehran road once again highlighted the need for a fundamental review of the country's pharmaceutical policies and distancing itself from fake statistics in favor of "sustainable health security".