Cuba’s Ambassador to Guyana, Jorge Francisco Soberon Luis is pushing for strengthened cooperation with Guyana in the area of biotechnology to address a number of health challenges in Guyana and to push the local pharmaceutical industry.

In a recent appearance on the SOURCES talk show, Ambassador Soberon Luis said notwithstanding the current socio-economic challenges facing the people of Cuba as a result of the tensions with the US, Cuba maintains a world-class biotechnology industry that produces innovative medicines to treat both Communicable and Non Communicable Diseases.

“We in Cuba have been investing heavily in this area for decades, since the 1980s. Actually, this is one of the reasons we were ready to obtain several vaccines in order to fight the COVID pandemic, otherwise, we would not have been in a position to do so,” the Cuban Ambassador said.

Cuba has developed preventive vaccines, cancer therapies and treatments for diabetes.

Ambassador Soberon Luis said the medications could be of significant benefit to the people of Guyana. He said strengthened cooperation in the area of biotechnology could see the medications being more readily available to Guyanese.

“In addition to the vaccines to fight COVID, Cuba has been able to produce unique biotech drugs to fight amputation, for example in the case of diabetes, which is Heberprot-P, and we have unique drugs also to fight cancer, for example I remember CIMAvax for lung cancer. So, we will continue to make the case for establishing and deepening these collaborations between Cuba and Guyana because Cuba is willing to share this knowledge and these products with Guyana to benefit those segments of the population that are indeed of these products,” the Cuban Ambassador said.

Guyana has been battling increases in diabetes, hypertension and various forms of cancer.

Ambassador Soberon Luis said there are economic benefits to be derived from such cooperation. He explained that there is a conglomerate of more than 35 companies in Cuba that export pharmaceuticals to more than 40 countries.

He said with Guyana experiencing rapid economic growth and development, Guyana is in a stronger position to discuss these initiatives with Cuba.

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