Commercial Effects of Iran's Membership in the WTO in Drug Industry

Globalization is an important issue in political, business, and cultural domains worldwide. It also affects health market. There are more attentions on drugs and their effects on sustainable development nowadays. Because of the strategic effects of medications on health and national security, the politicians pay more attention on drugs issues.

We aimed to assess business effects of Iran’s membership in the WTO on drug industries through four hypotheses. We recruited all 50 business experts, and managers of drug companies in Tehran. The participants had the responsibility of 80% of drug production and sales. Data was gathered using a validated questionnaire and analyzed using statistical t test.

The results showed that the effect of WTO membership on drugs export before and after membership was 30.24 (7.64) and 48.28 (5.35), respectively. The effect on drugs import was also 20.4 (3.1) and 22.96 (3.81), respectively. For assessing the impact of WTO membership on quality of drugs, we included three variables; the mean score was 7.76 (2.34) and 12.68 (2.07), respectively. Regarding the survival of Iran’s drugs industry before and after WTO membership, the mean score was 3.96 (8.5) and 50.16 (6.64), respectively.

The results showed that membership in WTO may have positive effects on the country’s drug export and import. It may also have positive effects on quality of the country’s drug production and the survival of the country’s drug industries.