Genetic Engineering News Reports Cuba Targets Biotechnology as a Future Growth Industry

Business Wire, June 22, 2000

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

BIOWIRE2K

LARCHMONT, N.Y.--(BW HealthWire)--June 22, 2000

Cuban biotech products and services could eventually vie with tourism, sugar and cigars as a major generator of export earnings and as a catalyst for joint venture products, reports Genetic Engineering News (GEN) (www.genengnews.com). Since the early 1990s there has been strong support for the development of biotechnology with a Cuban government investment of almost $1 billion, according to the June 15, 2000, issue of GEN.

"Cuba is trying to jump start new biotech projects and joint ventures and expand the commercialization of a host of products, R&D efforts and clinical trials," says John Sterling, managing editor of GEN. "However, due to the trade embargo with the United States, virtually all the R&D and business activities take place between biotechnologists in Cuba and those in Europe or Canada."

For example, York Medical, which is based in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, has licensed an anticancer drug from the Cuban National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology (INOR) and is testing it at the Institute. In all, the company has licensed three anticancer therapeutic drugs, a cancer vaccine and a topical antifungal.

Thousands of scientists working at some 38 institutes located in West Havana, known as the "Scientific Pole," have developed a range of new vaccines and drugs. These include products for treatment of cancers of the lung, head, neck, breast and ovaries, with some in multinational clinical trials. In development are chemotherapeutics derived from snake venoms and marine sources.

The Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) has formed a marketing subsidiary, Heber Biotec S.A., which reported sales of $45 million in 1999 with operations in 38 countries. Lead products include a recombinant hepatitis B vaccine, recombinant alpha 2b interferon, streptokinase, interferon gamma, an epidermal growth factor and a recombinant vaccine against ticks. Pipeline products include novel human and animal vaccines, pharmaceuticals, transgenic plants and genetically modified fish.

The impact of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba can be vividly seen in the case of Cuba's Finlay Institute. Scientists there have developed an anti-meningococcus vaccine effective against meningitis B. The product is being exported to 12 countries, including Brazil and China. Two years ago, SmithKline Beecham (NYSE:SBH) requested permission from the U.S. government to allow the Cuban meningitis drug to be brought into the country for testing and use. However, the importation of the vaccine continues to be delayed despite the support of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the approval by the U.S. Treasury Department in 1999, which granted SmithKline Beecham permission to create a joint venture with Finlay.

Genetic Engineering News is published 21 times a year by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. For a copy of the magazine, please call 914-834-3100, ext. 623, or email: ebicovny@liebertpub.com.