Cuba's Biotech Revolution

Cuba is broke. So it is investing in biotechnology, specifically in the development of a pharmaceutical industry in Cuba to make and sell generic versions of patented pharmaceuticals (and, naturally, they do not hold the patents). It is an interesting strategy:

Faced with economic calamity, Castro did something remarkable: He poured hundreds of millions of dollars into pharmaceuticals. No one knows how - Cuba's economy, with its secrecy and centralized structure, defies market analysis. One beneficiary was Concepcion Campa Huergo, president and director general of the Finlay Institute, a vaccine lab in Havana. She developed the world's first meningitis B vaccine, testing it by injecting herself and her children before giving it to volunteers. "I remember one day telling Fidel that we needed a new ultracentrifuge, which costs about $70,000," Campa says. "After five minutes of listening he said, 'No. You'll need 10.'"...

It's like Castro said: They don't really like patents. They like medicine. Cuba's drug pipeline is most interesting for what it lacks: grand-slam moneymakers, cures for baldness or impotence or wrinkles. It's all cancer therapies, AIDS medications, and vaccines against tropical diseases.

[Link] Cuba has long had discussions about bioethics with faculty teams led by Stuart Youngner of Case Western Reserve University. It will be interesting to hear how that group reacts to this development; they have done a great deal for bioethics in that small nation.