Cuba opens biotechnological fair showcasing cancer vaccines
English.news.cn 2012-03-06 07:34:05

HAVANA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Cuba's biotechnology industry on Monday opened the 29th "Havana International Biotechnology Congress" where the island nation will showcase the latest advances in the anti-cancer vaccines that Cuban scientists have developed in the last few years.


Monday's opening session was attended by 600 experts from 38 countries, including a Nobel Award winner in chemistry, and included "outstanding lectures" by internationally recognized experts in the field, organizers said.

Top on the list was the conference by the 2003 Chemistry Nobel Award Peter Agre who hold a special lecture on the biological and biochemical aspects of molecules and their applications against malaria.

Luis Herrera Martinez, a senior member of the Italy-based International Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology ( CIGB), also spoke in the opening session of the congress that will showcase the highest level of international research and science for the next few days until that congress close on March 8.

More:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/health/2012-03/06/c_131448266.htm

The rest of the world listens at least

...and not because he's moved Venezuela's seat of government to Havana, as rightwing nutballs would have it?

Naw! The nutballs must be on to something that the people of Venezuela, who have the power to recall their president in an election (and resoundingly refused to do so, in the 2004 recall election) have somehow gone to sleep-- even under the barrage of rightwing/corporate propaganda that they are fed every day, by the corporate media in Venezuela (which, contrary to nutball and CIA "talking points," freely berate and slander President Chavez, 24/7). The Venezuelan people must have missed this--the movement of their capitol to Cuba!

Hey, People of Venezuela, WAKE UP! Corporations and their rightwing flacks really have your best interests at heart, and, when they say that Chavez is a "dictator," a "communist," an "incompetent," "anti-democratic" and what-all, and has absconded with your government, you oughta riot in the streets, at least!

No, wait, WAIT! --'til Langley has all its ducks in a row and Chavez succumbs to his illness and dies, despite seeking the best medical treatment around! THEN start the rioting, okay? --when we're ready to really put all our heart into serving your best interests in government!

Need I say ?

The crapola they dish out about Chavez is beyond belief. Fortunately, Venezuela has a good working democracy, with honest, transparent vote counting and "best practices" election rules--unlike here.

We wonder how it's possible that legislators in the U.S. are now enacting laws to force vaginal probes into women who seek an abortion, or are passing "voter ID" laws to ban the poor from voting, or, together with other unelected goveronors, are engaged in all-out attacks on public employees' unions, for instance, in a liberal state like Wisconsin?

Stop wondering. Look to the corporate-run, 'TRADE SECRET" voting systems!

The news about Venezuela's very healthy democracy has been as black-holed here as the news about Cuba's highly lauded and FREE medical system (free educations for doctors AND free medical care for all Cubans!). Some "communist" ideas are good and beneficial. This is one of them! And the medical care for all part of it has been adopted not just in Venezuela, but in other LatAm countries and throughout Europe, not to mention Canada. Why NOT adopt good and beneficial ideas from whatever political system develops them?

Meanwhile, here, we have neither a healthy democracy nor the human right of medical care!

We wallow in a "Dickensian" past of "free trade for the rich," in which the poor, when they can't pay their bills, go to prison indefinitely, or the still healthy ones are forced into military service or onto colonial plantations as slave labor, and the streets of rich cities are filled with beggars and homeless, while the rich few cavort in luxury. THAT is the model that our rich few are working on. Dickens would turn over in his grave to see it all happening again.

"Communism," Cuba-style, has preserved Cuba from these oligarchic horrors--true, at some cost in political freedom, though nothing even close to the Soviet model. And who is to say what the relative merits and demerits are, of this system? Everything we hear is basically from the Miami "welfare" Mafia.

And in the rest of LatAm, a very difficult struggle is under way, to achieve benefits such as free medical care within a democratic system, and against the avid opposition of the fascist few and their corporate/U.S. government sponsors. Some wins. Some losses. Most points to the Left, thus far.

I repeat: Meanwhile, here, we have neither a healthy democracy nor the human right of medical care! And one of the key reasons that we have a sick and dying democracy and have never achieved a decent medical care system that is now the hallmark of the developed world (and Cuba) is the FALSE discussion here, perpetrated by the Corporate Rulers, of the Leftist democracy movement in Latin America and the sometimes good and beneficial policies of the "communist" system in Cuba!

There is no dispassion. Reason ain't in it. We are NOT ALLOWED to look at things with open eyes. We are instead propagandized, in the interest of our Corporate Rulers and the 1% Rich.

It is a tragedy.

Last Updated: Friday, 21 November, 2003, 08:29 GMT
Cuba sells its medical expertise
By Tom Fawthrop
reporting from Havana, Cuba

~snip~
In the 1980s millions of dollars were invested by the Cuban government in developing modern vaccines laboratories and a massive centre for biotechnology.

Since the end of Soviet aid in 1989, and the acute economic crisis of the 1990s, Cuba has seen the excellence of its medico-scientific institutions as a strategic resource for developing new medical products for export.
The country's first breakthrough in medical research was its discovery and patenting of meningitis-B vaccine in late 1980s.

It has been successfully exported to cope with epidemics in South American countries including Brazil and Argentina.
The vaccine has now been licensed to GlaxoSmithKline who will now market it in Europe and it is hoped eventually in the USA.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3284995.stm

[center]~~~~~[/center]
Medical Research in Cuba: Strengthening International Cooperation
15-17 February 2001, Havana, Cuba

~snip~
Medical and Biotechnology Research in Cuba

The workshop began with an overview of Cuban achievements and the current state of Cuban biomedical research. Beginning in the early 1960s, biotechnology and medical research became a top priority of the Cuban government, with over one billion dollars invested in biotech R&D in the 1990s alone. Today, Cuba boasts a ratio of 1.8 scientists per 1000 inhabitants, a level comparable to the European Union (though with a far smaller GDP). Cuba also holds 400 patents in the biotech field.

In 1965, Cuba's national Center for Scientific Investigation was founded, leading the way for the opening of numerous other research facilities. Today, there are 38 biotech centers, grouped together in a science park to the west of Havana, which integrate research, development, production and marketing. A highly focused research strategy has enabled the country to eradicate numerous diseases and to control epidemics in remarkably short periods of time. For example, soon after the outbreak of a dengue epidemic in the early 1980s, Cuban scientists discovered that their own interferon, which had been perfected in under two months, was effective against internal bleeding resulting from dengue fever. Vector control measures are now in place and Cuba is currently free of the disease.

As a result of its overall strategy, Cuba's research effort has produced a variety of products ranging from vaccines and cancer therapy drugs to fetal monitoring equipment. Some of the many examples include:

• Monoclonal antibody and interferon, for the treatment of cancer and viral diseases;
  
• Anti-meningitis B and hepatitis B vaccine, both have been certified by the WHO;
  
• Recombinant streptokinase for the treatment of heart attacks;
  
• biomodulin-T;
  
• blood derivatives (albumin, anti meningococcal immonuglobulin);
  
• vaccines (rabies, small pox, tetanus, diphtheria; salmonella tiphi).

More:
http://www.pugwash.org/reports/ees/ees8e.htm

[center]~~~~~[/center]
The Cuban Biotechnology Industry: Innovation and universal health care
By Andrés Cárdenas
Institute for Institutional and Innovations Economics
University of Bremen, Germany
November 2009

Abstract

The analysis of Cuban biotechnology reveals how important it is to rely on country-specific institutional innovations in order to evolve coherently from lesser to more technology-intensive industries. In this short contribution, it is argued that the development of the Cuban biotechnology industry must be understood in the context of the Cuban socio-political context. Indeed, the Cuban biotechnology has been conceived as an element of the state-funded health system, and is part of a broad strategy designed primarily to preserve a healthy population. The government investments and strategic involvement have been essential to create a research and production infrastructure and a qualified workforce which led to the creation of the West Havana Biocluster. Another feature of this industry has been the widespread and long-term state-fuelled integration of the biotechnology in a multi-institutional system, aimed at supporting interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge sharing. It will be argued that these characteristics are critical to the high innovation rate achieved by this industry.

Introduction

Even when the pervasive lack of data makes it difficult to establish an accurate picture about the innovative outcomes of Cuba’s biotechnology industry, the available evidence of its achievements in this field seems to be unequivocal. According to a World Bank report1, “[…] at present, nearly 80 percent of finished pharmaceutical products used in Cuba are locally made”. A few lines earlier, the report also states that“[…] the growth of the local pharmaceutical industry, which by the mid-1990s was bringing Cuba some 100 million dollars a year in export earnings, has not only covered domestic demand for medicines, but has also led to the development of products that compete on the international market. Cuba is the only country in the world, for example, that has come up with an effective vaccine against meningitis B”. This vaccine (VAMENGOC- BC®)2 is now exported primarily to Latin America, including Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, and Uruguay, but also to countries in Asia and Europe.

An article from the MEDICC Review3 states that “[…] a recent Ernst & Young report puts exports of biotech products at USD$300 million in 2005”. The recombinant hepatitis B vaccine (see figure 11) has received pre-qualification from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001 for international use and is now commercialised in more than 30 countries worldwide4. Cuba recently developed the world's first synthetic vaccine ( Quimi-Hib) against Haemophilus influenzae type b (or Hib), a bacteria that causes nearly 50% of all infections, some of which lead to deafness and mental retardation, in under five-year-olds worldwide5. According to a Chemical and Engineering News report6, this is the first commercial vaccine made from a synthetic carbohydrate, which is said to be cheaper than those based on natural carbohydrates; and to envision a new generation of carbohydrate-based vaccines. Cuba’s Centre for Neurosciences electroencephalography and electromyography equipments are being exported to over 20 countries in North America, Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America under the Neuronic trademark7. This Saragossa-based (Spain) Cuban company has earned the European Union’s certification for sale in Europe and won in April of 2009 the National Exporter Award for the volume of goods commercialized8.

The Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), located in the Western Havana Biocluster in Cuba, is one of the most important companies in Cuba and “has a long and distinguished record of producing innovative biotech products for the country’s healthcare system”9 (See Figures). Joint venture projects and licences include countries such as Canada, Great Britain, Algeria, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa, Tunisia, and Venezuela. Firms such as GlaxoSmithKline (England), CancerVax (US), Biotech Pharmaceutical Ltd (China), Oncoscience AG (Germany), YMBiosciences (Canada) are among the foreign collaborators. According to a study from Nature Biotechnology10 by 2004, Cuba had registered some 100 patents and applied for another 500 patents throughout the world. The US Treasury Department has approved several clinical trials of Cuban products within US territory, despite the US trade embargo against Cuba (see below).

More:
http://www.innovation-equity.eu/file_upload/andres-cardenas_paper.pdf

[center]~~~~~[/center]
One does not frequently hear of Cuba when discussing today's integrating global economy. Cuba appears isolated, politically and economically, mainly due to trade restrictions placed on it by the US in the 1960's. No wonder, says the author of this Straits Times article, the world is surprised to learn of Cuba's flourishing biotech industry which has contributed much to the field of biotechnology and medicine. Since its establishment in the mid-1980's, the Cuban biotech sector has developed a meningitis B vaccine, and today exports the world's most effective hepatitis B vaccine to more than 30 countries. Recently, it developed the first synthetic vaccine for the prevention of pneumonia and meningitis, which is much cheaper than what is offered by Western pharmaceutical companies. Poised to provide anti-cancer therapies to the European market by 2008, Cuba is also eagerly looking to enter the western market, and many observers are cheering it on. – YaleGlobal

Cuba Ailing? Not Its Biomedical Industry
Tom Fawthrop
The Straits Times, 26 January 2004

MENTION faraway Cuba and most people think of a Caribbean island best known for Havana cigars, rum and the revolutionary exploits of Che Guevara. They probably don't associate it with cutting edge medical research.

Yet Cuban biotechnology is now, among other things, leading the way in the development of a new generation of anti-cancer therapies expected to be available to the European market by 2008.

Given Cuba's cash-strapped economy, its scientific achievements are all the more surprising. It has long been battered by the United States trade embargo, imposed in the 1960s and still in force today. After the Cold War ended, Washington tightened the economic screws further with resulting shortages of consumer goods.

More:
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/cuba-ailing-not-its-biomedical-industry

ETC., ETC., ETC........