Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog. My post, my topic choice, my snark!
Via the UK Guardian:
“Cuba has approved what is believed to be the world’s first registered lung cancer vaccine and is offering it to Cuban and foreign patients in its hospitals.
The therapeutic vaccine CimaVax EGF extends life with few side effects, and is another step in Cuba’s expertise in biotechnology. It was unveiled on Monday at Havana’s centre of molecular immunology.
It has been shown to boost survival rates by an average of four to five months, and in some cases much longer. It does not prevent lung cancer. Unlike chemotherapy, CimaVax EGF is said to have few side effects because it is a modified protein which attacks only cancer cells.
“It’s the first such vaccine registered in the world,” said Gisela González, who headed the project begun in 1992. The drug is in various clinical trials, some in Canada and Britain, and is expected to be approved next in Peru.
Several companies had been licensed to market the vaccine, but it will be made in Cuba, said González. It has been approved for trial in the United States but use there is at least two years away, she added.”
The cost of the treatment has not been set yet.
Cuba’s self-reliance is borne of Fidel Castro’s early admonishment that:
“The future of our homeland must be that of men of science.”
and of the necessity of brought on by a crippling US embargo that imperils the heatlh and well-being of ordinary Cubans has led to creation of one of the world’s most vibrant and socially progressive bio-technology sector. Unable to import some of the medicines it needed, Cuba began making its own generic drugs through reverse engineering. From there sprang a state pharmaceutical industry and later, a biotechnology offshoot. Cuba now produces over 80% of the types of drugs and medicines used by its 11 million people.
The Cuban healthcare strategy is rather straightforward. The government develops the drugs and vaccines according to the demands of Cubans. It then tests them and dispenses them across the population through a network of neighborhood family doctors, polyclinics, and hospitals. However, successful development does not always ensure an adequate supply.
Beginning in 1992, Cuba committed itself to investing 1.5% of GDP annually into scientific research. A total of $1 billion between 1992 and 1996 went toward creating a no-frills, centralized version of Silicon Valley, the Western Havana Scientific Pole. A remarkable investment for a country in the midst of an energy crisis, a food crisis (the average Cuban lost 20 lbs between 1992 and 1998), and a general economic collapse.
At the Western Havana Scientific Pole, scientists at 52 institutes are researching vaccines and therapies for AIDS and Alzheimer’s, among others. There are some cooperation agreements - for product sales, joint ventures, contract manufacture and research - with entities in Latin America, China, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Australia. Cuba has over filed applications for 500 patents around the world. And while the US has granted Cuba 24 patents, the embargo has so far prevented Cuba from selling any of the products in the United States. Now it seems the embargo not just takes Cuban lives but American ones as well.
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