Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct.16/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Iran will become self-sufficient in producing radioisotope drugs in the next calendar year which will begin on March 21, 2013, ISNA quoted the National Security Committee spokesman Hossein Naqavi Hosseini as saying.
Once the first phase of the Arak nuclear power plant comes on stream, the country will be self-sufficient in producing radioisotope drugs for over one million patients suffering from various types of cancers and brain tumours, he noted.
In August, deputy head of the Iranian Ministry of Health for Research and Technology Mostafa Qanei said Iran plans to unveil six new homemade hi-tech medicines in the next few months, the Fars News Agency reported.
The official further stressed that the new drugs are as effective as the foreign versions of the medication, but cheaper.
In a landmark pharmaceutical progress, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) announced in January that Iranian scientists have managed to synthesise two new types of radioisotope medicines to treat malignant types of cancer.
"Iranian scientists and researchers at the AEOI's Nuclear Science and Technology Research Centre succeeded in producing two new radioisotope drugs for the first time to cure malignant cancers," AEOI spokesman Hamid Khadem Qaemi said.