An update on Cuban biotech

Cuba provides a rare example of a publicly owned biotech sector in a low-income country. Since its founding in 1986, Cuba’s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) has overseen the development of the country’s biopharmaceutical sector, from the initial conception of a drug through preclinical studies, clinical trials, licensing, manufacturing and export. We outlined the achievements of the CIGB in a 2007 Correspondence in this journal¹. Here we update that account to describe the subsequent course of biotech in Cuba. The CIGB has continued to shepherd the development of drugs and vaccines for cancer, infectious disease and other conditions and to date has obtained regulatory approvals in more than 50 countries (Table 1). Notably, during the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic, when vaccines were largely unavailable in developing countries, the CIGB manufactured a subunit vaccine (CIGB 66) based on well-established technologies². The vaccine was approved by the Cuban regulatory agency and in five foreign countries. The CIGB also demonstrated the efficacy of a pre-existing Cuban intravenous anti-inflammatory drug, CIGB 258, in patients with COVID-19 (ref. ³).

The CIGB is a biotechnology research institute within BioCubaFarma, a holding group of government-owned enterprises. Approximately 400 researchers are directly involved in R&D. The CIGB’s board prioritizes which R&D projects to pursue by considering a range of factors, including national public health priorities, in-house scientific expertise, the facilities required for large-scale production, and market research on potential patents and sales in foreign countries. Projects are coordinated by an Innovation Committee consisting of experts linked to research institutes, biotechnology companies, universities, academics and officials of the Ministry of Public Health. A weekly meeting of the Innovation Committee, attended by the president of Cuba, aims to achieve consensus on R&D projects. Most projects are approved by the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Environment. Public health priorities are identified by the Ministry of Health and largely reflect disease incidence in Cuba (Table 2).