Abdallah S Daar

Cuba—innovation through synergy

outstanding achievements in health biotechnology are a source of inspiration for the developing world. They are all the more impressive considering that the island is a small, relatively poor country that has suffered serious economic difficulties for more than a decade. These eco- nomic problems arose in the wake of the Soviet Unions disintegration and the political changes in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, resulting in the collapse of Cubas export markets, and the imposition since 1961 of a US trade embargo against Cuba, which has limited opportunities for the countrys agri- culturally based economy. Despite these diffi- culties, Cubas strong and continued emphasis on science since shortly after the 1959 revolution has resulted in a highly devel- oped health biotechnology sector. includes research on recombinant Dengue vaccine, preventative and therapeutic AIDS vaccines, cholera vaccine and a cancer therapeutic vaccine. The sector has also suc- cessfully produced diagnostic tests and therapeutics, as can be seen in Tab le 1 .I n addition, Cuba is devel- oping natural products based on the islands flora. An example is the natural anticholes- terol drug policosanol (PPG), an 8-alcohol extract derived from the wax of one of the countrys main crops, sugarcane. Cuba began development of its health biotechnology sector by imitating products developed elsewhere, such as interferon-α 2b (IFN-α ), but in recent years greater empha- sis has been placed on innovation from within Cuba. The perception that innova- tion is increasing is supported by biotech- nology experts, such as James Larrick, an entrepreneur in Palo Alto, CA, who says: Their pipeline is very, very deep now.… Its gone into an adolescence and its looking pretty good. 1 Indeed, researchers in Cuba have filed about 500 patent applications in the health biotechnology sector based on more than 200 inventions (according to an analysis of the European Patent Offices (Munich, Germany) database, the European Network of Patent Databases, May 2003, http://www.european-patent-office.org/). These have been filed in several countries throughout the world, including the United States, Europe, Brazil, India, China and South Korea. Cuba exports biotechnology products to more than 50 countries, mainly in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia. Cubas hepatitis B vaccine has been certified by the World Health Organization (Geneva, Switzerland) and is prequalified for use by United Nations purchasing agencies. The primary focus of Cubas health biotechnology has been on developing products, rather than basic

Health biotechnology in China - reawakening of a giant

showcased its capability in genomics and its intent to become one of the world’s leading contributors to the field of biotechnology. The country quickly set up major institutions in genomics, the Beijing Genomics Institute and the Chinese National Human Genome Center (with branches in Beijing and Shanghai), equipped with state of the art sequencing facilities and computers. Even though they entered the project relatively late, Chinese researchers successfully sequenced 1% of the human genome with an accuracy rate of 99%. They have continued to demonstrate their strength in the field, and in 2002 sequenced the rice genome of the most widely cultivated subspecies in China 1 . The country’s participation in the Human Genome Project is indicative of how rapidly China has reached world standards in sequencing, and this in turn reflects its general advanced state of development in health biotechnology. Since China initiated research in the field in the late 1980s, it has approved several vaccines and diagnostics and thera

Health biotechnology publishing takes-off in developing countries

To gain insights into the potentials and characteristics of health biotechnology in developing countries, we carried out an analysis of health biotechnology publications in developing nations that have had some successes in this field. We analysed the patterns of health biotechnology publications of authors from seven developing countries from 1991 to 2002. Our results showed a significant growth in health biotechnology publications in developing countries. Their growth in the field was larger than the growth in industrialised countries, but the visibility of their research was limited. Universities were found to be the strongest producers of health biotechnology papers in the countries we studied. This study showed further that international research collaboration of these countries was extensive and domestic knowledge flows between their institutions seems to be increasing. Contrary to other work on health research in developing countries, this study suggested that developing countries research was focused on local health needs.