The biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors have become a key, strategic element in Cuba's collaboration with Vietnam and China, including both production and research and development. Mayda Mauri Pérez, PhD, president of the Biocubafarma business group, shares the latest news on these ties.
The First Secretary of the Party Central Committee and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, described the cooperation in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals that Cuba and China have maintained since the beginning of the century as an "exemplary relationship." Cuba maintains similar ties with its Vietnamese counterparts.
The sector has undoubtedly become a key, strategic element in Cuba's collaboration with Vietnam and China. These links include production, but also the research and development of cutting-edge medicines, all processes from which the first beneficiaries are the Cuban, Chinese, and Vietnamese people.
The Presidential Press Group spoke with Dr. Mayda Mauri Pérez, president of the Biocubafarma business group, about the history, present, and development of these ties, in connection with the Cuban President's tour of these two countries and Laos, where collaboration in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors will be a common thread.
FOR VIETNAM, THE BEST OF THE CUBAN BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY
Relations between Cuba and Vietnam in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries date back many years, reminds Dr. C. Mayda Mauri Pérez when reviewing the key milestones of these ties, the progress of the joint venture between the Cuban company BCF SA and the Vietnamese company Genfarma Holdings, created in May of this year, and the boost to bilateral relations based on the consensus reached between the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, To Lam.
In the area of medicines, the interviewee emphasizes, Cuban vaccines, such as the preventive vaccine against hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae, have been leaders in Vietnam, something they have gained over time, as have other biotechnological products, such as erythropoietin and recombinant interferon alpha 2B.
"Since Comrade To Lam's visit to Cuba in September 2024, when he was also serving as President of Vietnam, new consensus has been reached in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.
"He and his colleague Díaz-Canel created a commitment, both with the Cuban and Vietnamese people, to elevate relations in this sector, which is so strategic for both countries, to a higher level.
"We have fulfilled that mandate through the creation of this joint venture, which was established in May of this year, and we followed the steps required for this process until we officially incorporated with a 49 percent stake.
"This company has something significant: it already has an extraordinary asset: a highly modern plant that meets the highest international standards for developing the formulation, filling, and packaging processes for various biotechnological products that our company contributes."
"The Cuban biopharmaceutical industry," its President points out, "will bring the best of its know-how to the Vietnamese market, and this company is unique, unlike those we have established in other markets, in that all entities of the business group participate in it, with the goal of bringing the best of our industry to the neighboring Indochinese nation. The aspiration is not only to produce the final stages, but also to generate the active pharmaceutical ingredients and carry out joint research and development (R&D) activities."
"We intend," the executive added, "to produce blood products there in the short term. This will be another extraordinary event that will give Vietnam technological sovereignty not only in the case of vaccines and very high-value-added biotech products, but also in the case of blood products."
And this—Mauri Pérez emphasizes—will also have a decisive impact on the health of the Cuban population, because everything we do with Vietnam will have a return on our basic medicine supply; that is, with the participation of the Vietnamese, we will have financial resources that will allow us to produce on a large scale and satisfy the demand of both their population and ours.
"That gives us great hope. We know the complex situation we're experiencing with the lack of medicines, and now we'll have that option, and who better to do so than the Vietnamese people, those people who adore our Commander in Chief and who feel so much love for the Cuban people."
CUBAN-CHINESE BIOTECHNOLOGY AND PHARMACEUTICALS
The President of Biocubafarma also spoke to us about the ties between Biocubafarma and its partners in China, and the projects to be developed with our sister country. "It's a relationship that has lasted more than 20 years and has its origins in the strategic vision of our Commander-in-Chief, Fidel Castro Ruz, who, in his meetings with Chinese leaders, agreed to work together in this industry. It's a strategy that Army General Raúl Castro Ruz continued, and now our comrade Díaz Canel is doing the same."
"With great pride and also, of course, with modesty," the executive noted, "we are very happy with what has been achieved in bilateral relations in this sector, which is so strategic for both countries and closely touches national sovereignty, because when we master technology, when we have the possibility of having independence in the production of products as sensitive as vaccines, such as high-added-value medicines, we are giving the country, we are giving our people great peace of mind."
"We have an example with COVID-19. In such difficult times, our industry was able to respond to an emergency situation very efficiently, with its vaccines and biotechnology and pharmaceutical products, which we were able to put into the therapeutic arsenal available to the Ministry of Health. And in this, the relationship between the Cuban and Chinese biopharmaceutical industries was very significant."
Regarding the current status and prospects of these scientific and productive ties, the director noted that we are currently entering a new phase; a process of relaunching that relationship.
"We are firmly committed," he argued, "to further consolidate our joint ventures with China, which now number three. And how have we achieved this? Well, we offer the best we have to these joint ventures, which then develop highly innovative projects and products."
"Now," he added, "we are creating a 100 percent Cuban company in China. It's a system destined to become a bridge between China and Latin America. Its objective is to identify those excellent products that Biocubafarma can bring to the Latin American market, leveraging its experience, know-how, distribution channels, and alliances with regional counterparts."
Among other milestones in the ties in this sector, the President of Biocubafarma highlighted a new collaboration and business model that joint laboratories and R&D centers have been developing.
"Research and development is very expensive and carries high risk. So, who better to share those risks, but also those great benefits? Because when an innovative project moves beyond the R&D stages and becomes a product, the benefits are extraordinary, both in terms of the impact on the health of our populations and from an economic perspective."
"It's a modality," he continued, "that we have been developing and that we plan to strengthen. Based on this development, for example, in one of the joint R&D centers, we have generated new patents with the development of projects for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and other therapeutic indications that are vital for the Cuban population, the Chinese population, and the international population."
"China," he adds, "is one of the main suppliers of raw materials, inputs, and technological equipment for the production of medicines that impact the basic health of the Cuban population. Therefore, to the extent that we manage to develop business models where Chinese counterparts increasingly participate as suppliers, but also as product developers, we will generate mechanisms where we create a financial system that, to the same extent that they are suppliers to the pharmaceutical industry, but also clients, facilitates mechanisms that self-finance the operation."
"In this way, as I explain it to you," Mauri Pérez pointed out, "our population benefits in two ways. First, it guarantees that we can more easily acquire supplies, raw materials for the production of medicines, but it also allows for the development of new projects, products with a significant impact on the treatment of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, two of the leading causes of death in our country.
"At the beginning of September," the President of Biocubafarma reported, "we will be holding the 13th meeting of the Cuba-China Biotechnology Working Group. It's a mechanism that has worked very well, and this year it's time to hold the meeting there."
"We've made so much progress on this, identifying and strengthening relationships with our various counterparties, that we plan to sign more than a dozen documents regarding the intention to establish new joint ventures, new joint laboratories, and other business models."
FOR CUBA, CHINA AND THE WORLD
Regarding the most popular Cuban products in the Chinese market, the Biocubafarma leader commented that there are currently four registered products targeting nine therapeutic indications.
"One is Nimotuzumab, a monoclonal antibody that has the distinction of being the first to be produced in China; this is a source of great pride for our organization. It is aimed at cancer treatment and has been licensed in China for esophageal cancer, but last year—and this is one of the major milestones in recent years—it achieved legal status for head and neck and pancreatic cancer.
"There aren't many options for this type of therapeutic indication in the world, and our joint venture achieved this year that the head and neck treatment was incorporated into the National Health Insurance Program. This means this is a therapeutic indication that will allow Nimotuzumab to reach large populations in China.
During COVID, during the reengineering process we undertook to better utilize Biocubafarma's therapeutic arsenal of products, Mauri Pérez recalled that this monoclonal antibody played an important role in controlling the hyperinflammatory processes caused by the disease, and that Nimotuzumab was brought in from our joint venture in China.
"Another example is the recombinant interferon alpha-2B produced there, which was selected by Chinese health authorities to be part of the main products they used at the start of the pandemic. And we brought from that joint venture all the active pharmaceutical ingredients we needed to be able to treat our people as well.
"We all remember the impact nasal interferon had on controlling the pandemic. The Cuban people learned about this drug; it was available in large quantities, thanks to the active ingredients we brought from there."
Elaborating on the fruitful Cuban-Chinese collaboration in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors, Dr. C. Mayda Mauri reported that a business model is currently being developed with Biocubafarma's partner for the production of PPG. "This is one of the historic products of our collaboration, with increasing sales and high-standard production facilities."
"We are currently producing the 81-milligram aspirin that heart patients so desperately need. This agreement will allow us to make available all the 81-milligram aspirin needed by the Cuban population, which is included in our basic supply, in the coming months. And it will be thanks to this agreement, because with PPG's own export sales to the People's Republic of China, we will be financing the aspirin for heart patients."
"But we're not going to limit ourselves to aspirin alone. We've defined a group of medications, in this case in tablet form, that we'll be producing with this counterparty in China using the same business model.
"In other words, the business models with our Chinese brothers are geared toward the benefit of the Cuban population, so that, through these mechanisms, we can obtain financing for the productions required by the Cuban National Health System."
rainpizza in cuba
Cuban science in Vietnam and China, a win-win relationship
https://www.granma.cu/cuba/2025-08-31/ciencia-cubana-en-vietnam-y-china-una-relacion-de-ganar-ganar-31-08-2025-15-08-23The biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors have become a key, strategic element in Cuba's collaboration with Vietnam and China, including both production and research and development. Mayda Mauri Pérez, PhD, president of the Biocubafarma business group, shares the latest news on these ties.
The First Secretary of the Party Central Committee and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, described the cooperation in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals that Cuba and China have maintained since the beginning of the century as an "exemplary relationship." Cuba maintains similar ties with its Vietnamese counterparts.
The sector has undoubtedly become a key, strategic element in Cuba's collaboration with Vietnam and China. These links include production, but also the research and development of cutting-edge medicines, all processes from which the first beneficiaries are the Cuban, Chinese, and Vietnamese people.
The Presidential Press Group spoke with Dr. Mayda Mauri Pérez, president of the Biocubafarma business group, about the history, present, and development of these ties, in connection with the Cuban President's tour of these two countries and Laos, where collaboration in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors will be a common thread.
FOR VIETNAM, THE BEST OF THE CUBAN BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY
Relations between Cuba and Vietnam in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries date back many years, reminds Dr. C. Mayda Mauri Pérez when reviewing the key milestones of these ties, the progress of the joint venture between the Cuban company BCF SA and the Vietnamese company Genfarma Holdings, created in May of this year, and the boost to bilateral relations based on the consensus reached between the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, To Lam.
In the area of medicines, the interviewee emphasizes, Cuban vaccines, such as the preventive vaccine against hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae, have been leaders in Vietnam, something they have gained over time, as have other biotechnological products, such as erythropoietin and recombinant interferon alpha 2B.
"Since Comrade To Lam's visit to Cuba in September 2024, when he was also serving as President of Vietnam, new consensus has been reached in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.
"He and his colleague Díaz-Canel created a commitment, both with the Cuban and Vietnamese people, to elevate relations in this sector, which is so strategic for both countries, to a higher level.
"We have fulfilled that mandate through the creation of this joint venture, which was established in May of this year, and we followed the steps required for this process until we officially incorporated with a 49 percent stake.
"This company has something significant: it already has an extraordinary asset: a highly modern plant that meets the highest international standards for developing the formulation, filling, and packaging processes for various biotechnological products that our company contributes."
"The Cuban biopharmaceutical industry," its President points out, "will bring the best of its know-how to the Vietnamese market, and this company is unique, unlike those we have established in other markets, in that all entities of the business group participate in it, with the goal of bringing the best of our industry to the neighboring Indochinese nation. The aspiration is not only to produce the final stages, but also to generate the active pharmaceutical ingredients and carry out joint research and development (R&D) activities."
"We intend," the executive added, "to produce blood products there in the short term. This will be another extraordinary event that will give Vietnam technological sovereignty not only in the case of vaccines and very high-value-added biotech products, but also in the case of blood products."
And this—Mauri Pérez emphasizes—will also have a decisive impact on the health of the Cuban population, because everything we do with Vietnam will have a return on our basic medicine supply; that is, with the participation of the Vietnamese, we will have financial resources that will allow us to produce on a large scale and satisfy the demand of both their population and ours.
"That gives us great hope. We know the complex situation we're experiencing with the lack of medicines, and now we'll have that option, and who better to do so than the Vietnamese people, those people who adore our Commander in Chief and who feel so much love for the Cuban people."
CUBAN-CHINESE BIOTECHNOLOGY AND PHARMACEUTICALS
The President of Biocubafarma also spoke to us about the ties between Biocubafarma and its partners in China, and the projects to be developed with our sister country. "It's a relationship that has lasted more than 20 years and has its origins in the strategic vision of our Commander-in-Chief, Fidel Castro Ruz, who, in his meetings with Chinese leaders, agreed to work together in this industry. It's a strategy that Army General Raúl Castro Ruz continued, and now our comrade Díaz Canel is doing the same."
"With great pride and also, of course, with modesty," the executive noted, "we are very happy with what has been achieved in bilateral relations in this sector, which is so strategic for both countries and closely touches national sovereignty, because when we master technology, when we have the possibility of having independence in the production of products as sensitive as vaccines, such as high-added-value medicines, we are giving the country, we are giving our people great peace of mind."
"We have an example with COVID-19. In such difficult times, our industry was able to respond to an emergency situation very efficiently, with its vaccines and biotechnology and pharmaceutical products, which we were able to put into the therapeutic arsenal available to the Ministry of Health. And in this, the relationship between the Cuban and Chinese biopharmaceutical industries was very significant."
Regarding the current status and prospects of these scientific and productive ties, the director noted that we are currently entering a new phase; a process of relaunching that relationship.
"We are firmly committed," he argued, "to further consolidate our joint ventures with China, which now number three. And how have we achieved this? Well, we offer the best we have to these joint ventures, which then develop highly innovative projects and products."
"Now," he added, "we are creating a 100 percent Cuban company in China. It's a system destined to become a bridge between China and Latin America. Its objective is to identify those excellent products that Biocubafarma can bring to the Latin American market, leveraging its experience, know-how, distribution channels, and alliances with regional counterparts."
Among other milestones in the ties in this sector, the President of Biocubafarma highlighted a new collaboration and business model that joint laboratories and R&D centers have been developing.
"Research and development is very expensive and carries high risk. So, who better to share those risks, but also those great benefits? Because when an innovative project moves beyond the R&D stages and becomes a product, the benefits are extraordinary, both in terms of the impact on the health of our populations and from an economic perspective."
"It's a modality," he continued, "that we have been developing and that we plan to strengthen. Based on this development, for example, in one of the joint R&D centers, we have generated new patents with the development of projects for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and other therapeutic indications that are vital for the Cuban population, the Chinese population, and the international population."
"China," he adds, "is one of the main suppliers of raw materials, inputs, and technological equipment for the production of medicines that impact the basic health of the Cuban population. Therefore, to the extent that we manage to develop business models where Chinese counterparts increasingly participate as suppliers, but also as product developers, we will generate mechanisms where we create a financial system that, to the same extent that they are suppliers to the pharmaceutical industry, but also clients, facilitates mechanisms that self-finance the operation."
"In this way, as I explain it to you," Mauri Pérez pointed out, "our population benefits in two ways. First, it guarantees that we can more easily acquire supplies, raw materials for the production of medicines, but it also allows for the development of new projects, products with a significant impact on the treatment of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, two of the leading causes of death in our country.
"At the beginning of September," the President of Biocubafarma reported, "we will be holding the 13th meeting of the Cuba-China Biotechnology Working Group. It's a mechanism that has worked very well, and this year it's time to hold the meeting there."
"We've made so much progress on this, identifying and strengthening relationships with our various counterparties, that we plan to sign more than a dozen documents regarding the intention to establish new joint ventures, new joint laboratories, and other business models."
FOR CUBA, CHINA AND THE WORLD
Regarding the most popular Cuban products in the Chinese market, the Biocubafarma leader commented that there are currently four registered products targeting nine therapeutic indications.
"One is Nimotuzumab, a monoclonal antibody that has the distinction of being the first to be produced in China; this is a source of great pride for our organization. It is aimed at cancer treatment and has been licensed in China for esophageal cancer, but last year—and this is one of the major milestones in recent years—it achieved legal status for head and neck and pancreatic cancer.
"There aren't many options for this type of therapeutic indication in the world, and our joint venture achieved this year that the head and neck treatment was incorporated into the National Health Insurance Program. This means this is a therapeutic indication that will allow Nimotuzumab to reach large populations in China.
During COVID, during the reengineering process we undertook to better utilize Biocubafarma's therapeutic arsenal of products, Mauri Pérez recalled that this monoclonal antibody played an important role in controlling the hyperinflammatory processes caused by the disease, and that Nimotuzumab was brought in from our joint venture in China.
"Another example is the recombinant interferon alpha-2B produced there, which was selected by Chinese health authorities to be part of the main products they used at the start of the pandemic. And we brought from that joint venture all the active pharmaceutical ingredients we needed to be able to treat our people as well.
"We all remember the impact nasal interferon had on controlling the pandemic. The Cuban people learned about this drug; it was available in large quantities, thanks to the active ingredients we brought from there."
Elaborating on the fruitful Cuban-Chinese collaboration in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors, Dr. C. Mayda Mauri reported that a business model is currently being developed with Biocubafarma's partner for the production of PPG. "This is one of the historic products of our collaboration, with increasing sales and high-standard production facilities."
"We are currently producing the 81-milligram aspirin that heart patients so desperately need. This agreement will allow us to make available all the 81-milligram aspirin needed by the Cuban population, which is included in our basic supply, in the coming months. And it will be thanks to this agreement, because with PPG's own export sales to the People's Republic of China, we will be financing the aspirin for heart patients."
"But we're not going to limit ourselves to aspirin alone. We've defined a group of medications, in this case in tablet form, that we'll be producing with this counterparty in China using the same business model.
"In other words, the business models with our Chinese brothers are geared toward the benefit of the Cuban population, so that, through these mechanisms, we can obtain financing for the productions required by the Cuban National Health System."