For about 15 years, Iran has been one of the countries with the world’s fastest growth rate in scientific publications in the medical-biomedical field. Despite decades of international sanctions, limited access to state-of-the-art equipment, a lack of import opportunities for reagents, and almost complete scientific isolation, the country has built up a remarkable research landscape – with strengths that are sometimes even globally visible.

Rank and development (as of early 2026)

• SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR): Iran ranks 15-17 in the world in 2025 in terms of total biomedical publications (depending on database and counting).
• Scopus data 2020-2025: Iran was the country with the highest average annual growth (+18-22%) in Clinical Medicine & Health Sciences.
• Nature Index 2025: Iran ranks among the top 20 in health sciences (behind Turkey, ahead of Egypt and Saudi Arabia).
• Share of global publications: Approx. 2.1–2.4% of all medical articles worldwide come from Iran (2024/25).

The growth has been almost exclusively domestic: international collaborations have declined sharply since 2018/19 due to sanctions and visa problems (less than 12% of publications have foreign co-authors).

The strongest fields of research (2024–2026)

Remarkable successes and international visibility

• COVID-19 vaccines: Iran was one of the few countries to produce and deploy two of its own inactivated vaccines (COVIran Barekat & Razi Cov Pars) on a large scale – despite the lack of mRNA technology.
• First CRISPR studies in humans (2023–2025): Several Iranian centers (Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz) conducted very early first-in-human trials of CRISPR/Cas9 in ?-thalassemia and sickle cell anemia.
• World record for stem cell publications per capita: Iran has been among the top 5 countries (per million inhabitants) for stem cell publications for years.
• Highest rate of clinical trials per capita in the entire WHO EMRO (Middle East & North Africa) region.

The biggest structural problems (2026 reality)

Conclusion: Iranian medical research in 2026 – impressive despite the most adverse circumstances

Iran has managed to build one of the most dynamic biomedical research landscapes in the non-Western world, despite a sanctions policy that has been in place since 1979 and massively tightened since 2012. The country produces more medical publications per capita than Brazil, South Africa or Turkey – at a fraction of the budget and under conditions that are hardly imaginable for Western researchers.

The strengths clearly lie in low-resource, creative approaches: traditional medicine + modern science, low-cost stem cell and nanotechnology, in-house development of vaccines and gene therapies.

The weaknesses are just as obvious: massive isolation, brain drain, lack of access to cutting-edge technology and an increasing quality gap to the absolute world’s top centers (Harvard, Karolinska, Max Planck, Broad, Sanger, Shanghai, Beijing, etc.).

In short, Iranian medical research in 2026 is an impressive example of scientific resilience under extreme conditions – but at the same time a sad example of how sanctions affect not only regimes, but also entire generations of scientists and patients.

The article was originally published by LabNews. Responsible for the content is LabNews Media LLC, USA.

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Editor: X-Press Journalistenbüro GbR

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