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Cuba cutting 'world class'
trail in biotech research
Well-funded government
labs enable Castro's cash-starved nation
to produce high-quality vaccines and medications
for a global market
By Gary Marx, Chicago
Tribune foreign correspondent. December
18, 2005.
HAVANA -- On the outskirts of Havana sits
a cluster of drab buildings that are part
of an effort to propel Cuba to the forefront
of biotechnology even as its population
struggles with blackouts, shortages and
crumbling infrastructure.
Known as the Center for Genetic Engineering
and Biotechnology, or CIGB, the institute
is one of 52 government facilities dedicated
to human, animal and agricultural research
that have recorded a string of successes.
Using more than $1 billion in state funding,
Cuban scientists have produced a hepatitis
B vaccine sold in more than 30 countries
and streptokinase, a potent enzyme that
dissolves blood clots and improves the survival
rate of heart attack victims. The country
also makes recombinant interferon that strengthens
the immune system of cancer patients, and
a meningitis B vaccine.
In the pipeline are products ranging from
an injection that closes ulcers and improves
circulation in diabetics to vaccines against
cholera and hepatitis C, according to Cuban
officials.
"We've been very impressed by the
biotech industry in Cuba," said Anne
Walsh, vice president for communications
at GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world's largest
pharmaceutical companies. "It's world
class."
Despite Cuba's success in the laboratory,
some experts question whether a poor country
should be spending scarce resources on research.
The production of milk, beef and other foods
has fallen even as its scientists embark
on years-long efforts to produce genetically
modified rice, corn and other crops that
are disease resistant.
Criticism from Florida
"Thinking big in the context of widespread
needs and shortages is irresponsible,"
said Damian Fernandez, director of the Cuban
Research Institute at Florida International
University.
There also is a question of whether Cuba
is using its biotech industry to develop
biological weapons. The U.S. State Department
leveled the bioweapons charge against Cuba
in 2002 but in August softened its stance
and said the evidence was inconclusive.
But even the suggestion that Cuban scientists
may be involved in a weapons program infuriates
Carlos Borroto, CIGB's deputy director.
"Our biotech [industry] is so public,
so transparent," he said. "The
people who are working here, you could [threaten
to] kill them and they would not produce
a bioweapon."
Borroto and other officials said the island's
biotechnology sector already has played
an important role in improving health care
in Cuba while also providing low-cost vaccines
and other medicines to developing countries.
The industry is slowly becoming an important
revenue source for this cash-starved nation,
earning an estimated $300 million a year,
officials say.
"We have some advantage because our
products are the same quality as the rest
of the world, and most of the time they
are cheaper," said Sergio Perez Talavera,
sales manager in Asia for Herber Biotec
SA, CIGB's commercial branch.
Cuba's biotechnology industry started from
scratch more than two decades ago after
visiting American scientists met with Cuban
President Fidel Castro and told him about
the potential benefits of interferon in
cancer treatment.
The nation's first biotechnology laboratory
opened in 1981 with six researchers, and
the government poured money into the sector
even after Cuba's economy took a nosedive
following the collapse of the Soviet Union,
then the island's main benefactor.
Today, thousands of scientists work in
what is known as the Polo Cientifico, a
series of facilities that include the Finlay
Institute, developer of the meningitis B
vaccine, and the National Center for Bioreagents,
a huge plant whose leading product is the
hepatitis B vaccine.
Cuba's crown jewel
The crown jewel of Cuba's biotech industry
is CIGB, a collection of manufacturing facilities,
greenhouses and research laboratories.
This month CIGB played host to Havana's
annual biotechnology conference, drawing
250 experts from Germany, Mexico and three
dozen other nations to discuss ways to improve
agricultural production.
Among the Cuban scientists presenting their
research at the conference was Rolando Moran,
who has spent more than a decade trying
to genetically modify the sweet potato to
resist the weevil larva, a ravenous pest.
Moran said his work is still in the experimental
stage but hopes it can someday increase
crop yields. He praised the government for
supporting his research but said funds are
tight.
Jose de la Fuente, a former top CIGB scientist
who is an Oklahoma State University professor,
said the growth of Cuba's biotech industry
is threatened by another problem: the intrusion
of politics into science.
He said many top Cuban researchers studied
and worked in Europe, Japan and the United
States but authorities are increasingly
preventing Cuban researchers from traveling
abroad if they do not support Castro's one-party
system.
"This does not create a good atmosphere
for good science," said de la Fuente,
who left Cuba in 1999 after losing his job
at CIGB.
Even under optimal conditions, it would
be tough for impoverished Cuba to compete
in the global arena against the pharmaceutical
heavyweights.
Yet, while Western pharmaceutical companies
focus mostly on producing drugs for North
America, Europe and other wealthy regions,
Cuba's efforts have centered on developing
vaccines and other products for internal
use and for export to the Third World.
"The U.S. companies are not that interested
in tackling diseases that are not blockbusters,"
said Francois Arcand, director general of
the Spanish company ERA Biotech. "Cuba
is in a different world. They are doing
a niche strategy. They are going where there
is less resistance."
Cuba's biomedical industry also has formed
partnerships in India, China and other nations,
which like Cuba are developing medicines
for far less than it would cost to purchase
the same products abroad.
But Perez, the CIGB sales representative,
said Cuba is looking increasingly toward
breaking into Europe and other lucrative
markets.
The effort will be costly and difficult,
despite Cuba's biomedical advances.
"A good patented product can surpass
the sales of all our products combined,
and this is our main target," Perez
said. "This is a very, very hard task."
gmarx@tribune.com
Copyright © 2005, Chicago
Tribune
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