Cuba is especially touting an interferon it produces, a decades old
antiviral agent that boosts immune system.
The island nation says it has been successful in treating the novel
coronavirus at home and in China, and that 80 countries have already
expressed an interest in buying its interferon alpha 2b.
The government is hoping that its interferon and other treatments it
is developing will provide a lift to its struggling economy.
"We have good products like interferon alpha 2b that we are
exporting and that open possibilities," Trade Minister Rodrigo
Malmierca said during a recent televised roundtable.
Interferons have long been used internationally to treat dengue
fever, cancer and hepatitis B and C. Studies during the SARS
epidemic in 2003 suggested interferons might also be useful against
coronaviruses.
Havana has promoted that China, where the pandemic emerged last
year, included interferon in its treatment guidelines for COVID-19,
the disease caused by the virus. One of the interferons it used is
produced by a joint Cuban-Chinese venture Changheber, Cuban
authorities said.
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Critics have accused Cuba of advocating a treatment that is unproven
for COVID-19, as well as originally obscuring the fact other
countries also produce interferon alpha 2b.
Interferons can cause serious side effects when administered in
their usual forms – injections or infusions - some of which may
mirror COVID-19 symptoms, such as fever and breathing difficulty.
Cuba, however, says it has treated nearly all of its patients with
interferon injections and credits the medicine for helping it
achieve a lower mortality rate among its 1,804 confirmed COVID-19
cases - 4.1% versus an average of 5.9% for the rest of the Americas.
It has also flagged a trial at Taihe hospital in China's Hubei
province at the height of its outbreak that suggests newer ways of
administering interferon may help contain the virus and even prevent
contagion with fewer side effects.
None of the nearly 3,000 healthcare workers who used interferon nose
drops became infected with the novel coronavirus, according to an
informal study report reviewed by Reuters. They included more than
500 with high exposure to infected patients, the Chinese researchers
said.
The trial used interferon alpha, albeit not specifically the Cuban
version, and the results have not been formally peer-reviewed or
published in reliable medical journals.
In a separate trial at Union hospital in Wuhan, China, COVID-19
patients who inhaled interferon in an aerosol formulation had faster
improvement in respiratory symptoms and clearance of the virus from
their blood than patients who did not receive interferon, according
to another informal report by Chinese, Australian and Canadian
researchers.
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Randomized controlled trials are needed to corroborate these early
findings and dozens of studies involving interferon are underway
worldwide.
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Cuba is not waiting for those results. It is already starting to use interferon
nose drops for infection prevention in medical workers.
FIDEL'S BIOTECH INDUSTRY
Interferon, considered a potential miracle drug in the 1970s and 1980s, has a
special place in Cuba.
Castro, whose 1959 revolution prioritized health and education and who often
took a keen interest in scientific developments, sent Cuban scientists abroad to
study its production.
They swiftly figured out how to manufacture it at home and the drug was used
successfully during a 1981 outbreak of hemorrhagic dengue fever. That was when
Cuba's biopharmaceutical sector started to grow in earnest despite obstacles
posed by the U.S. trade embargo.
It now produces most of the drugs used in Cuba as well as more than 300 products
for export to more than 50 countries, including a therapeutic vaccine for lung
cancer called CIMAvax.
There are now 21 research centers and 32 companies employing some 20,000 people
under the umbrella of the state-run BioCubaFarma.
Medicine exports brought in $442 million in 2016, according to the latest
available official data, surpassing export revenue from sugar, rum or tobacco.
Supporters of Cuba's success say it disproves the idea that free market
competition is needed for pharmaceutical and biotech innovation. Skeptics
question whether the mostly state-financed industry is in fact profitable, and
whether it can flourish given Cuba's cash woes.
Cuba has not been able to produce enough medicines to fully meet domestic demand
in recent years under strict austerity measures.
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But the pandemic may present a unique opportunity for the sector to burnish its
reputation and generate hard currency.
BioCubaFarma President Eduardo Martínez gave a presentation last week on a raft
of drugs Cuba is testing and developing to strengthen the immune system against
COVID-19, prevent a worsening of symptoms and help patients recover.
It is developing its own version of AbbVie's <ABBV.N> Kaletra, an HIV therapy
being tested in combination with other drugs, including interferon, against
COVID-19.
Martinez said Cuba's efforts were garnering interest abroad, and he anticipates
high demand.
"We are creating the conditions to introduce (these drugs) at an industrial
level and to crank up their production," he said.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh in Havana; Additional Reporting by Nancy Lapid in New
York and Roxanne Liu in Bejiing; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Bill Berkrot)
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