Cimavax, a lung cancer vaccine developed in Cuba, will soon start trials in the U.S. now that the embargo has been eased, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this week.
Bloomberg reported that the governor and his delegation concluded a two-day trip to Havana on Tuesday and announced before departing back to New York that Buffalo-based Roswell Park will work with Cuba's Center for Molecular Immunology to bring the vaccine north. Trials of the vaccine's effectiveness are set to start within a year of its arrival.
In exchange, Manhattan-based Infor will provide critical healthcare software to a Cuban university.
"It affirms the feeling I had coming down that normalization of relationships between our special countries is the exact right way to go," Cuomo told reporters. "There’s no doubt that developing these mutual business relationships that are proven, that assist Cuba and also work for the companies, is a big part of moving forward."
Roswell Park CEO Candace Johnson spoke highly of Cuba's biotech industry after Cuomo's announcement.
"They've had to do more with less, so they've had to be even more innovative with how they approach things," she said,
according to Wired magazine. "For over 40 years, they have had a preeminent immunology community."
The lung cancer vaccine in particular may have been driven in part by Cuba's famous cigar industry, as the ailment is the fourth leading cause of death in the communist island nation.
Climavax is reportedly a vaccine 25 years in the making, and the Cuban Ministry of Health released it to the public in 2011, making it available for free.
A 2008 trial showed that patients who received the vaccine lived four to six months longer than those who didn't.
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