Cuban Biopharmaceutical Industry Limited due to US Blockade

The United States blockade limits academic exchange and development and causes millions of dollars in losses to Cuba’s biopharmaceutical industry, one of the country’s strategic economic sectors.

The latest report presented by Cuban authorities on Washington’s blockade shows that the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center (CIGB) has not been able to receive revenues from the export of Heperprot-P to the United States, the only drug of its kind in the world to treat patients suffering from diabetic foot ulcer, due to this policy.

If at least 5% of US diabetic foot ulcer patients had been treated with Heberprot-P, the value of Cuba’s exports in 2018 would have totaled 103 million dollars, according to the report.

Another company affected by the nearly six-decade long blockade is Importadora-Exportadora FARMACUBA, which did not receive the raw materials necessary to produce medications.

From April 1 to March 31, 2019, the ‘8 de Marzo’ pharmaceutical laboratory had to stop production, due to the impossibility of acquiring raw materials regularly, the report noted.

From April 2018 to March 2019, the US economic, financial and commercial blockade caused damages of 4.343 billion dollars to the island.

Considering the depreciation of the US dollar against gold on the international market, the blockade has caused total financial damages to Cuba of 992.63 billion dollars over the past six decades.

Cuba, which will submit the draft resolution against the blockade for the twenty-eighth consecutive year to the United Nations General Assembly, is supported by most countries in the world.