Even hospitals are often short of X-ray film and antibiotics. Cuba is hardly a likely place to find First World scientific research going on. Yet while the average Cuban must scrounge for aspirin, this Caribbean island of 11 million people has been nursing a budding biotechnology industry that the government of Fidel Castro hopes will become a major source of dollars. Over the past 10 years, Castro has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a science park on the western outskirts of Havana.
Foreign scientists say the facility is on a technological par with U.S. vaccine plants.
Cuba is better known as a producer of sugar, cigars, rum, and nickel, but its biotech bid is not as illogical as it might seem. It cannot expect to prosper by relying solely on its limited natural resources, and 38 years of free university education has produced a highly educated population, including a large cadre of doctors and scientists. Nobelists on bicycles. Ten years ago, after hearing a visiting scientist describe the new cancer-fighting drug interferon, Castro directed Cuban immunologist Manuel Limonta to set about trying to produce it. Limonta succeeded, and founded the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, which is today one of the largest producers of interferons.