RoydadNaft –  Iran’s National Petrochemical Company (NPC) and the syndicate of pharmaceutical, chemical and drug-packaging producers have signed a memorandum to extend the petrochemical value chain through to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and to steady raw-material supply.

Mohammad Mottaqi, NPC’s downstream industries development manager, said the company’s third year at the eighth Pharmex exhibition is meant to map petrochemical-to-pharma capacity and where that chain can grow, Roydad Naft reported, citing NPC.

Drug-industry needs should be identified and ranked, then set against products petrochemical plants can make, so investment opportunities sit on the missing links, he said. Connecting the two industries would add value, jobs and industrial activity.

Petrochemical products are usually sold to industrial specifications. Once they enter the drug chain they must meet pharmaceutical standards. Some petrochemicals need extra purification before they can be used as drug inputs. Mottaqi called intermediate chemicals the important missing layer between basic petrochemicals and finished medicines.

Polymer and medical-device materials and packaging are another part of the same chain, he said.

The memorandum is a starting path, not just a new label on the petrochemical chain or a slogan about cutting imports, Mottaqi said. The parties need to show which chains work technically, economically and technologically, which links are missing and which projects can fill them.

The text covers a petrochemical-pharma value-chain map, identification of required drug raw materials, needed technologies, feedstock standards and a slate of strategic projects. Work should start by ranking real drug-industry demand, matching it to petrochemical output, defining missing-link projects with technical and economic justification, then offering those projects to capable investors. A joint steering committee and secretariat are provided so the process can be followed.

Syndicate board chairman Faramarz Ekhtaraei said the deal can take petrochemicals from basic products to finished goods and open joint investment. He and Mottaqi signed the memorandum at the close of Pharmex. Under it, the two sides will work to turn basic and intermediate petrochemicals into specialty chemicals, intermediates and APIs.