محمد مهدوی مزده

Domestic pharmaceutical industry, as one of the strategic high-technology industries, has a significant impact on individuals’ health. Despite its success in providing maximum medicine domestically, the industry, with its more than 110 active manufacturing companies in the form of semi-governmental holdings, private companies, and agile knowledge-based companies, faces challenges at the policy and operational levels. The challenges, situations, and some strengths of the industry would be identified in the present study using the scientific research method. To identify and review the challenges and status and also to explain the improvement strategies, in-depth interviews with 8 experts in the pharmaceutical industry in senior management positions in the manufacturing industry, regulators, and related syndicates planned and qualitative content analysis method using MAXQDA 2020 software platform applied to identify the challenges, situations, and strengths of the industry. According to the qualitative content analysis, challenges related to inappropriate policy-making, limited financial resources, and inappropriate pricing policies in the industry have been identified as the most important obstacles versus industry development, and on the other hand, the maximum supply of medicine in the country, appropriate knowledge  base and desirable quality of some products are listed as strengths of the industry. Efforts to reform macro policies and industry strategies at the policy and regulatory levels, including private sector development, commitment to quality improvement, and the development of new pricing methods, are among the most important future solutions to cope with the challenges of the industry.