Ambassador Torres: Cuba established a center for genetic engineering and biotechnology 40 years ago
Cuban Ambassador to Kuwait Alan Pérez Torres stated that Cuban biotechnology is one of the most prominent outcomes of a scientific policy formulated more than four decades ago by the Cuban Revolution. He added that its advancement was closely tied to the strategic vision of Supreme Leader Fidel Castro Ruz, who wisely understood that a small country, lacking significant natural resources and blockaded by the world’s foremost superpower, and facing severe restrictions in accessing advanced technologies, had to transform its education, research, and scientific talent into sources of sovereignty and well-being.
Pérez noted that Cuba launched this strategy by establishing the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) in 1986, exactly 40 years ago, followed by the development of the scientific hub in Havana. These initiatives formed a system integrating research, production, and the application of results for the benefit of the people. Thanks to Fidel’s invaluable support, Cuba succeeded in innovating new vaccines and drugs to treat a wide variety of diseases, yielding significant social impact. The results achieved demonstrate that the bet was not limited to manufacturing known drugs, but focused on developing specialized products and technologies capable of responding to specific population needs.
The “corona” pandemic put the entire system established in the 1980s to the test, yielding important results. The experience proved the value of capabilities accumulated over decades of scientific development in Cuba. Cuban research also entered one of the major challenges of contemporary medicine: neurodegenerative diseases. It developed NeuroEPO, marketed as NeuralCIM, a targeted research initiative for treating mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. Clinical trials have shown encouraging results, and research continues. This is complemented by research in other areas, such as therapeutic vaccines, drugs for autoimmune diseases, and new cancer treatments, demonstrating the breadth of the scientific platform established in the Caribbean island.
All of Cuba’s achievements and progress in applied biotechnology for health acquire a special dimension because they were realized after more than six decades of U.S. economic, commercial, and financial embargo, amid difficulties in accessing funding, technologies, equipment, raw materials, and certain supplies. For this very reason, the decision to develop specialized capacities carried economic and political significance, in addition to its scientific dimension: for Cuba, producing vaccines and drugs meant reducing certain forms of external dependence and maintaining response capabilities in the face of emergencies.
Thus, biotechnology has become a tangible expression of the idea Fidel advocated: that science and knowledge can serve as strategic resources for a nation. The social impact of the achievements Cuban science has made over these past forty years is invaluable. They have translated into vaccines to protect the population, drugs to treat cancer, therapeutic alternatives for diabetes complications, and new research against Alzheimer’s disease, alongside the training of thousands of highly specialized professionals and the creation of scientific infrastructure to serve the national health system.
Fidel Castro’s work in this field should be understood as the political and strategic impetus that made the conditions for this development possible. At the same time, the results are the fruit of the work of generations of scientists, doctors, engineers, technicians, and workers. In a country subjected to decades of severe external restrictions, Cuban biotechnology represents, above all, more than just a list of drugs; it represents the transformation of science into a tool for health, sovereignty, and social response.
