Apothecaries in Iran to Receive Standard Sign 

Mohammad Reza Shams Ardakani, the secretary of the Headquarter, which is a taskforce at the Iranian Vice Presidency for Science and Technology and Knowledge-Based Economy, said, "The challenges we face in the field of traditional medicine are not very serious because the indigenous medicine has roots in our civilization."

He furthur said that the country is in a good position in terms of medicinal plants because of its climatic and geographical conditions, adding, "We have to pay attention to the mass production and processing of medicinal plants if we want to compete on the world markets."

Shams Ardakani emphasized that establishing and operationalizing medicinal plant refineries is of great importance in boosting the medicinal plants industry, adding, "Currently, we have four relatively active medicinal plant refineries located in Kashmar, Golpaigan and Mashhad, and the fifth refinery will be established soon so that we can extract their effective ingredients instead of using medicinal plants raw materials."

"There may be a thousand chemical compounds in medicinal plants that are cultivated, while refineries allow us to extract several types of effective substances from medicinal plants," he added.

"Currently, 200 knowledge-based companies are operating in the field of medicinal plants and traditional medicine, Shams Ardani said, adding, "The activities of these companies are categorized in three areas; the first one is the primary processing of medicinal plants, which includes processes such as packaging of medicinal plants. The second category is the activity of these companies in the field of extraction and the third category is the production of medicinal plants."

"Another measure that the Vice Presidency's Headquarter has on its agenda is the organization of apothecaries so that we can support the apothecaries who provide services to the people with more scientific capabilities."

"As part of the program, we are trying to guide the apothecaries to use standard plants that are free from pollution and have a standard badge," the official added.

"We are finalizing a process to award Hekmatbonyan badges to those apothecaries who serve the public using scientific methods."

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