How did the Iran war affect the health and medicine sector globally? | economy

The impact of the escalating war on Iran and the widening scope of turmoil in the Middle East has affected one of the most sensitive networks in the global economy, namely the health and medicine supply chains, in a shift that reflects the widening scope of the shock from energy and transportation to health security.

Recent reports reveal that the Gulf, which is not a major producer of medicines as much as it represents a pivotal transit node for them, is facing a double bottleneck that has affected both its vital routes, namely the Strait of Hormuz, the airspace, and regional shipping centers.

According to an analysis published by Think Global Health, a research platform specialized in the field of health, commercial activity across the Strait remained about 90% below pre-war levels until March 16, 2026, while air cargo capacity in the Gulf region declined by 79% between February 28 and March 3, which in turn was reflected in a decrease in global capacity by about 22%.

In this context, the war is no longer just a passing geopolitical shock, but has turned into a structural factor that redefines the risks of pharmaceutical security globally, in terms of cost, time of arrival, and degree of dependence on limited geographical paths, which reveals the fragility of the supply chain model based on the concentration of transit points in a limited number of vital centers.

Crossing knot

The danger of the current developments lies in the fact that the Gulf Cooperation Council countries constitute a major transit center linking pharmaceutical manufacturers and their components in India, Europe, and China on the one hand, and between the markets of Africa, Asia, and the United States on the other hand. The Think Global Health analysis estimates the value of the Gulf pharmaceutical industry at approximately $23.7 billion, with approximately 80% of it relying on imports that pass through the Gulf airspace and the Strait of Hormuz, and this value is expected to double by 2033.

Dubai stands out at the heart of this network as a center for re-export, cold storage (preserving medicines within specific temperatures to ensure their effectiveness and quality), and redistribution, with an advanced infrastructure relied upon by major logistical companies and international health supply chains. The disruption of this axis does not only reflect on trade, but on humanitarian supplies as well, which was clearly demonstrated in the cessation of operations of the World Health Organization’s Dubai Logistics Center due to insecurity, airspace closures, and restrictions related to Hormuz.

Sensitive medications

The first and fastest effect often appears in medicines that are more sensitive to time and temperature, such as vaccines, insulin, biological treatments, and cancer drugs. Sources indicate that these products depend greatly on air freight and cold chains, which makes them the most vulnerable when airports and air hubs are disrupted.

The Health Beat platform, which specializes in public health, quoted an expert in healthcare supply chains, Prashant Yadav, as saying that most of these medicines must be transported within a narrow temperature range, usually between two and eight degrees Celsius, and that shipping companies need about a week and a half to compensate for every week in which air freight stops, which raises the risks of damage, delay, and lack of equipment designated for refrigerated transportation in subsequent shipments.

Reuters indicates that Western pharmaceutical companies have actually begun searching for alternative paths to bring treatments into the Gulf, including transportation via Jeddah and Riyadh airports or via Istanbul and Oman, with the use of land freight in some stages to compensate for the interruption of traditional air corridors via Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha. However, these solutions, although they mitigate the immediate shock, remain more expensive and more complex, and are not equally suitable for all pharmaceutical products, especially those with a short shelf life.

Higher cost

The crisis in the short term is not necessarily heading towards a comprehensive shortage of medicines within major economies, but rather towards rising costs and increasing risks of bottlenecks in specific categories. Buffer stocks still provide a degree of protection, as Think Global Health estimates indicate that pharmaceutical companies maintain, on average, a stock of finished products sufficient for about 180 days, and major distributors also maintain additional stocks of approximately 25 to 30 days.

In the European Union, several countries impose stocks of essential medicines ranging from two to six months, so the immediate danger is not empty shelves as much as it is the inflation of the cost of transportation, insurance and redirection, which may later be transmitted to consumer prices.

The specialist in the marketing and pharmaceutical industry sector, Muhammad Al-Omari, says that pharmaceutical factories in Jordan, the Gulf, and Egypt faced a noticeable increase in the costs of shipping raw materials, despite the uninterrupted supplies from their Asian and European sources.

Al-Omari explained in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net that the main problem was not availability, but rather the high cost of transportation, at a time when drug prices are subject to strict pricing systems determined by food and drug authorities, which has prompted many companies to postpone import operations to avoid losses that cannot be compensated by raising prices.

He adds that this situation led to a slowdown in imports by manufacturers and importers alike, while relying on available stocks, which caused some limited interruptions that were not directly felt by patients, as a result of the short duration of the crisis and the availability of sufficient safety stocks with foreign companies and drug agents, which mitigated the immediate impact of the war on the markets.

Reuters indicates that some executives in the sector believe that the continuation of the crisis may lead to a decrease in supplies of some oncology drugs within 4 to 6 weeks if the disruption lasts for a long time, while other analyzes have quoted supply chain specialists that an increase in air freight prices, especially from India, may begin to affect drug prices for consumers during the same time frame.

The World Health Organization announced on March 5 that the operations of its logistics center in Dubai, which fulfilled more than 500 emergency requests for 75 countries over the past year, had become temporarily suspended. As a result, access to humanitarian health supplies worth $18 million was inaccessible, while other shipments worth $8 million were unable to reach the center. More than 50 emergency supply requests addressed to 25 countries were also affected, including medicines for Gaza and laboratory supplies to combat polio.

The crisis adds another dimension related to non-pharmaceutical medical inputs, most notably helium used to cool MRI machines. According to what was reported by the “Healthbeat” website, the Iranian attack on March 18 on Ras Laffan introduced a great deal of uncertainty into the global helium market, at a time when Qatar is the second largest producer of this gas in the world.

Although the effect does not appear immediately due to the presence of stocks and relatively long time intervals between production, delivery, and repackaging, the continuation of restrictions may lead to a tightening of a market that already suffers from fragility, especially with the presence of about 50,000 MRI machines in the world and more than 95 million examinations performed annually.

On the other hand, companies tended to develop alternative routes to overcome bottlenecks, as Reuters reported that land and sea logistical corridors are being expanded through Jeddah, Salalah, Sohar and Khor Fakkan, with priority given to transporting basic goods, especially food and medicine.