NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, February 16, 2017

A joint venture between the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, and the Center for Molecular Immunology in Havana could open its doors to new U.S. investors as early as April.

“We hope that by the first of April this will be incorporated in Cuba … and at that point we would be looking for investors,” Thomas Schwaab, an oncology professor and the institute’s director of strategy and business development, told a gathering Tuesday.

The joint venture — the first in the field of biotechnology — would be based in the Mariel Special Development Zone west of Havana and would produce vaccines to fight cancer developed with Cuban technology. U.S. clinical trials of the Cuba-produced CIMAvax vaccine against lung cancer began in January, under an authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.