The biotechnological industry in Cuba is developing a long-term strategy to manage cancer as a chronic disease. The island country currently has 28 medical products registered or in various stages of experimentation for the treatment of cancer, including therapeutic vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, interferons and peptides.
These drugs should have an increasing long-term impact in turning advanced cancer into a manageable chronic condition with an acceptable quality of life, said, Rolando Perez Rodriguez of the Centre of Molecular Immunology.
The country is preparing a package of bills to introduce new medical products in 2017, according to Rodriguez.
These products are currently in different stages of clinical trials or pre-clinical development, and should soon move toward registration and medical use.
Pedro Pablo Guerra, a specialist of the National Coordinating Centre for Clinical Trials, said the CimaVax-EGF vaccine, proved to help increase life expectancies by seven years for advanced lung cancer patients, is now being tested in four cities in Cuba.
Registered in 2008, CimaVax-EGF has since been tested on 81,000 patients and will now be used in primary health care units in Cuba.
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In this new phase, experts will compare the effectiveness of this product with Zoladex, an international therapy used to fight prostate cancer and breast cancer.
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Source-IANS