The Director-General of Iran’s Food and Drug Administration (IFDA) for Drugs and Controlled Substances Affairs said that Iran managed to produce “ACTEMRA” drug for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

“In addition to Remdesivir, ACTEMRA drug, which effectiveness has been approved by US Food and Drug Administration in the relative recovery of patients suffering from coronavirus, COVID-19, will be distributed at hospitals within the next two weeks.” Heidar Mohammadi told IRNA on Monday.

This drug has not yet been hit Iran’s pharmaceutical market and only a limited amount of this drug had previously been donated by China to Iran, he said, adding, “this drug is still used in hospitals of the country.”

The type of subcutaneous injection of the drug “ACTEMRA”, which is used for treatment of rheumatism, is presently produced by one of domestic pharmaceutical companies but its intravenous injection type is applicable for patients suffering from COVID-19, he emphasized.

Iran’s Food and Drug Administration (IFDA) has not yet issued a license for this drug, he said, adding, “Of course, laboratory sample of this drug has been produced in the country. Even, this drug with trademark of “Tocilizumab” hit in Iran’s pharmaceutical list last week.”

Elsewhere in his remarks, he said that clinical trials of this drug will probably be approved by the Food and Drug Administration next week.

With the studies made in this regard, “ACTEMRA” drug will likely hit pharmaceutical market of the country within the next two weeks and consequently, it will be distributed at hospitals, he noted.

MNA/

Latest data released by Iran’s Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry show that the country’s industrial parks managed to attract 231 investors with a total $2.1 billion of investment in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19).

This amount of investment led to the creation of 19,862 jobs in the industrial parks and zones, IRNA reported.

According to the Industry Ministry, over 1,100 exporting industrial units are operating in the country’s industrial parks and zones whose annual export reaches up to $12.64 billion.

Based on the report, 62 export management companies (EMC) with an annual export of $236 million were identified in these areas and 72 export consortia with a total annual export of $352 million were also formed in the mentioned period.

The ministry also reported that 23 memorandums of understanding (MOU) were signed with foreign partners to develop international cooperation between small and medium industries in the previous Iranian calendar year.

Supporting 41,631 industrial units to participate in domestic and international exhibitions, as well as holding eight training courses and sending 176 managers of industrial units to Germany to get acquainted with the German market, as well as finding new markets, establishing long-term relationships with German companies and the development of economic relations between the two countries in cooperation with the German Association for International Cooperation (GIZ) were also among the Industry Ministry’s achievements in the previous year.

In the current year, which has been called the year of “Surge in Production” by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Seyed Ali Khamenei, the Industry Ministry has been putting special importance on the industrial parks and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The ministry plans to bring 1500 idle units, mostly SMEs, back into operation by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 2021).

Based on the ministry’s plans for the current year, reviving 1,020 unproductive small mines is also on the ministry’s agenda.

MNA/

Iranian feature film ‘Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness’ directed by Masoud Bakhshi, will be screened at two film festivals in Estonia.

The film is to be screened in both summer and autumn editions of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, which will be held in September and October.

‘Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness’ depicts the future of a young woman facing retributive justice play out live on the country’s most popular reality show.

Behnaz Jafari, Faqiheh Soltani, Fereshteh Sadr-Orafaee, Bahram Afshar, Fereshteh Hosseini and Babak Karimi are among the cast members of the flick.

The film has won a top prize at the Sundance Film Festival in the US. The festival’s World Cinema dramatic section gave its grand jury award to ‘Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness’, a drama by Iranian filmmaker Masoud Bakhshi.

The film has so far gained international recognition by attending a number of events and winning a number of awards, including the Grand Jury Award at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival in the US.

Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival is an annual film festival held since 1997 in Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia.

With over 500 films, short films and animations around 1400 attending film professionals and journalists and attendance of more than 90,000 the event is the largest annual cultural event in Estonia.

MNA/

Iran provides laboratory services to the neighboring countries as a significant number of researchers in those countries is a good platform for expanding the export of laboratory services.

Reza Asadi-Fard, director of the laboratory network at the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology, pointed out that the quality of the country’s laboratory services has increased, stressing the need to provide these services to other countries, IRNA reported.

One of the best ways to introduce the country’s laboratory services to global markets is to facilitate the export, he noted, adding, certainly the services have an acceptable capacity to be exported to other countries.

The Vice Presidency for Science and Technology has been providing the technology and innovation for several years to applicants in various fields such as engineering, materials and metallurgy, electricity and electronics, chemistry, aerospace, mining; and also services in the fields of environment, agriculture and medicinal plants, biotechnology, and medicine, he explained.

One of the plans the Vice Presidency this year is to supply products in these fields to international markets, he concluded. T.T/

Iranian short film ‘Better than Neil Armstrong’, directed by Alireza Ghasemi, has won the ‘best drama’ award at the first edition of the Southport Film Festival in the UK.

Written and directed by Alireza Ghasemi, ‘Better than Neil Armstrong’ is the story of four kids who start their journey to the moon with the mission of finding a mysterious place called ‘The Redland’, but the gates of The Redland are being guarded by a mischievous snake.

Run by film-makers for film-makers, this festival is destined to become a significant annual event on the cultural calendar in the Northwest of England, reads the event’s website, adding their simple aim is to showcase the very best short films from around the world.

The event was held online from June 26 to 28.

The Iranian short film has competed in more than 40 international festivals across the world so far, obtaining numerous awards.

MAH/

An official with Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) said on Sunday that The country’s exports to the UAE increased 39 percent in terms of weight in a three-month timespan to June 20.

According to the Director-General of the Arab-African States Department at TPO Farzad Piltan, the UAE market has had a 15.2-percent share in Iran’s exports in the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year, reaching $967 million from March 21 to June 22, 2020.

“This figure in the same period in 1398 stood at $895 million dollars, which shows a growth of 8 percent,” he said noting that the announced figures are registered under the coronavirus pandemic.

“However, in terms of weight, Iran’s exports to the UAE in the first quarter of the current fiscal has increased by 39 percent to 3,377,000 tons,” he added.

As Piltan said, Iran-UAE trade hovers around $12 billion annually, 40 percent of which belongs to Iran’s exports to the country.

Iranian Parliament Research Center (IPRC) said that the United Arab Emirates (UAE), China, and Iraq accounted for about 54 percent share of Iran’s total value of non-oil goods in 2018.

There is a relatively strong focus on Iran’s export target markets in such a way that the aforementioned three countries accounted for about 54 percent of the country’s total exports share value of non-oil goods, Head of Iranian Parliament Research Center Mohammad Ghasemi added. MNA/

Four books on the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, which is known as Sacred Defense in Iran, have been published in English.

“Viva Kumayl”, “Hand in Hand with Rain”, “City of Blood: The Commander’s Account” and “You Know the Commander?” have translated and published in collaboration between Sureh-Mehr Publications and the Iran Language Institute.

“Viva Kumayl” written by Mohsen Motlaq, a war veteran who recounts his memories of the days he spent with Iranian soldiers and volunteers on the frontlines.

The book was originally published in 1991, three years after the end of the war. The Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei wrote a recommendation for the book at that time.

“The writing is scented with a rich aroma of sincerity,” the Leader wrote and added, “Due to its fine style of narration and satirical attitude, these memories are more readable than other written memories of the war; it should be translated.”

Co-written by Hedayatollah Behbudi and Morteza Sarhangi, “Hand in Hand with Rain” is a compendium of accounts of their visits to the warzones and Khorramshahr and Abadan, two Iranian cities hit by the war, a few months after the end of the war. The writers were praised by the Leader for the efforts they made in writing the book.

“City of Blood: The Commander’s Account” covers the remarks Ground Force Chief Brigadier General Ali Sayyad Shirazi made in a long interview with Saeid Fakhrzadeh about Iran’s military movements a few days before the liberation of Khorramshahr on May 24, 1982. The Persian version of the book has been edited by Ahmad Dehqan, one of Iran’s foremost war writers.

Sayyad Shirazi was assassinated by the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) in 1999 while serving as the deputy chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff, the second-highest military office in Iran.

In “You Know the Commander?”, a number of commanders narrates memories about their comrade Hossein Kharrazi, one of Iran’s high-ranking commanders who was martyred during Operation Karbala 5 on the frontline at Shalamcheh on February 27, 1987.

The book has been written by Marjan Fuladvand and is appropriate for teenage readers./T.T/