Word: cuba
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...China and Iran. Thus, Heber provides all Cuban newborns with the hepatitis-B vaccine for free and charges countries like India as little as $2 a shot. But the "special period"--as Cubans euphemistically refer to the economic crisis that followed the Soviet withdrawal--has redrawn these priorities, and Cuba's biotechnicians are entertaining larger ambitions. "We have the technology," declares Julio Delgado, who heads CIGB's industrial-enzyme program. "Now we're looking for partners with money...
Joint ventures with foreign firms could bolster Cuba's credibility in the global biotech marketplace. While Cuban institutions conduct clinical trials of vaccines and drugs and informally follow U.S. guidelines for field-testing recombinant organisms, the perception persists that Cuba sometimes releases its products prematurely. Recently, for example, scientists at the Citrus Institute developed a monoclonal antibody to detect tristeza, a lethal virus that threatens to devastate the Caribbean citrus industry. However, although the antibody works well in Cuba, it is being offered to countries whose crops may be infected with different strains...
...Cuba clearly appeals to foreign pharmaceutical firms. It occupies a strategic location on the edge of major markets in North and South America and boasts more than 5,000 scientists and technicians--a skilled work force that is, by Western standards, grossly underpaid (average monthly salary: 400 pesos, or about $10). Peter Scott, chief executive of London-based Beta Funds Ltd., estimates that a European drugmaker could produce its drugs in Cuba for one-tenth the cost of local production...
Right now, however, the U.S. trade embargo prohibits American drug and chemical companies, Cuba's natural partners, from establishing joint ventures. The embargo likewise dissuades big European companies from striking deals with Cuba because products made in Havana cannot be sold in the U.S., which represents 50% of the global market for pharmaceuticals...
...awaits the lifting of the U.S. embargo more eagerly than Cuban scientists, who struggle to obtain basic supplies--chemical reagents, for instance--that in the U.S. are but a phone call away, and whose incomes are starting to trail behind those of service workers buoyed by Cuba's rising tourist trade. CIGB has reportedly started paying its scientists partly in dollars to keep them from leaving the field. "I love my research," confides a hardworking scientist. "But if I have to drive a taxi to support my family, I will...