The Cuban Molecular Immunology Center (CIM) and the Roswell Park Cancer Research Center, in Buffalo, USA, joined forces a few years ago to facilitate access to equipment and reagents, in order to promote the development of the drug, a relationship that has not been without difficulties, due to the economic blockade policy against Cuba.
The creation of the only joint venture between Cuba and the United States, the biotechnological company Innovative Immunotherapy Alliance, with the purpose of introducing the drug into American society, provided Cuba with access to equipment and reagents that are very difficult to obtain due to the limitations of the coercive measure, while the US can access a drug with excellent results and prospects.
Dr. Elia Neninger, who has participated in clinical trials of the therapeutic vaccine since the beginning, assured that the drug has two great advantages: few adverse reactions and a solution to a serious health problem on the island, such as lung cancer.
Kalet León Monzón, deputy director of the Center for Molecular Immunology, said that the beneficiary patients recover from an advanced tumor cancer that could have a very short-term prospect of survival under normal conditions.
One of those favored with the vaccine, Miguel Creus, a patient who began receiving Cimavax 15 years ago, when the disease was in phase four and the vaccine was in clinical trials, assures that the drug has prolonged his life with a state of satisfactory health. He currently has no traces of tumors or symptoms of the disease.
Despite the effects of the economic blockade of the White House, the collaboration between both institutions does not stop, and Cimavax overcomes the challenges. There are currently clinical trials that combine this Cuban vaccine with other successful cancer treatments, and their effects are being studied in high-risk people or patients in the initial stage of the disease.
According to some studies, lung cancer is the third most common cancer in the US, but the deadliest. A promising relief could be this Cuban drug, a good example of the benefits that both nations would obtain if they had a normal relationship.
