In Cuba, A Biotech Revolution Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - mart The Boston Globe - May 17, 2002 In Cuba, a biotech revolution by Michael Kranish Castro's investment holds huge potential WASHINGTON All of the elements of a classic biotech tale are present. There are scientists touting a revolutionary cancer treatment, a tiny company willing to finance the idea, a university hoping to reap big licensing fees, and a government official who believes that there are billions of dollars to be made. But this is not the tale of just another start-up. This tale unfolds in Cuba, and the government official is President Fidel Castro. The tiny biotech company, YM Biosciences Inc. of Toronto, has made a deal with the University of Havana to produce a cancer vaccine that could compete against one being produced by a U.S. company. If the deal goes through, Castro's government could receive hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties and help biotech become the biggest money maker for the island nation after tourism, tobacco, rum and sugar. Until this month, such deals have received relatively little attention outside the biotech world. But last week, the Bush administration accused Castro of using the biotech business to conceal development of biological weaponry materials that might have been exported to Iran and other countries. That allegation, in turn, prompted Castro on Monday to escort former President Jimmy Carter, who was in Havana on a long-scheduled trip, to a Cuban biotech center and declare that the product is medicine, not the materials of war. Whether or not the White House accusation is true, it has shined a spotlight on the fact that Cuba has spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing a biotech industry in an effort to compete directly against U.S. companies. The undersecretary of state for arms control, John Bolton, who made the accusations against the Cuban biotech industry, has also acknowledged that it is "one of the most advanced in Latin America and leads in the production of pharmaceuticals and vaccines that are sold worldwide." In the biotech world, this is not just another chapter in a debate about Cuba; it is also about whether it is worth trying to leapfrog the U.S. embargo and invest in Cuban technology in hopes of a big payday. Already, GlaxoSmithKline PLC has licensed a Cuban vaccine for meningitis B, which the company hopes to eventually sell in the United States and around the world if clinical trials prove successful. Cuba itself exports a version of the drug to some countries. And YM Biosciences, a 25-employee company, hopes that its partnership with the University of Havana on a cancer drug will one day result in sales of $500 million per year. At the same time, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, which represents many biotech and pharmaceutical companies, warns that Cuba may have reproduced drugs made by U.S. companies in violation of patent laws, a claim supported by a former top Cuban science official. "Yes, Cuba did copy of course some of the developments obtained by some of the U.S. companies because there was no patent laws recognized in Cuba," said Jose de la Fuente, who for 10 years was director of research and development at Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, which Carter visited Monday. De la Fuente added, "Of course, when Cuba wanted to sell some of those products in the international market, Cuba then searched for markets where those patents are not recognized in Asia and Latin America." De la Fuente, who left Cuba in 1999 and now lives in Oklahoma, stressed that Cuba's biotech industry had also developed unique drugs, including the meningitis vaccine now licensed by Glaxo. As for bioterrorism products, de la Fuente said none were manufactured during his tenure. But he said Cuba became so starved for hard currency that it sold technology to Iran in the late 1990s that could be used to produce biological weapons. For example, de la Fuente said, Cuba sold Iran recombinant materials intended to be used to make a hepatitis vaccine, but the technology could also be used for bioterrorism. "Once the technologies are transferred," de la Fuente said, "the country that bought the technology could do with them that what they want." Bolton said the Cuban biotech industry has produced "dual-use" products that can be used both for pharmaceuticals and bioterrorism. But Carter said that U.S. officials who briefed him before he left for Cuba made "absolutely no allegations" about the nation's bioterrorism capability. Cuba's biotechnology business is clearly a Castro creation. As soon as he became Cuba's leader, Castro issued a proclamation posted throughout Cuba that said, "The future of this nation is necessarily the future of men of science." When Castro saw the emergence of biotechnology in the 1980s, de la Fuente said, he poured $1 billion into the industry - an enormous amount for such a small, poor country. Copyright (c) 2002 The Boston Globe, International Herald Tribune ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytenv-05.19.02-19:52:46-28047