The bloc was quite advanced in certain sciences, but 1. Did they research and produce any new drugs that were used internally, within the Communist bloc and/or throughout the world?
Did they produce generic drugs for their own uses? Drugs whose patents had expired and anyone can produce) Did they export these? (Think how generic aspirin is produced in Asia)
Did they "reverse-engineer" any drugs that were patented? Did they produce these for internal use? Did they export these to allied countries?
Was there any exporting by the countries themselves (think patented or cheaper generic drugs from China/India nowadays) or in smaller quantities by individuals (Americans tourists bringing asthma inhalers from Cuba) from the West of drugs from the Bloc to the West?
Just one example that socialist countries did do research and produce new medications
Yugoslavia's (Croatia) pharmaceutical company Pliva's research laboratory in 1980 developed and patented a very good antibiotic Azithromycin
Following that in 1986 Pliva made a license deal with Pfizer where Pfizer distributed it in USA and Western Europe under the name of Zithromax, while Pliva retained the rights for Central and Eastern Europe where it is selling it under the name of Sumamed
The patent expired in 2005, and now Azithromycin is a free-to-use generic medicine
In addition to that single instance, in Yugoslavia there were several pharmaceutical companies. Croatia itself had at least two, the mentioned Pliva and another Belupo. Slovenia had it's own very famous Krka Their company website which I linked indicates they were both registering patents, as well as got approval from the American FDA. They also exported medicine to other countries, mostly other socialists or non-aligned nations
Serbia had its own Hemofarm (link in serbian) There might have been others in other republics inside Yugoslavia.
It seems to me all those companies were involved in manufacture, sales and export of both generic medicine as well as research and development of their own. They also seemed to respect the international patent process.