Havana, December 13 (RHC)-- Cuba and China reviewed the launch of a joint innovation center in biotechnology, considered essential to scientific development based on projects and techniques achieved by the Caribbean island.

This center is based on the bilateral cooperation between both countries in that strategic field, Cuba’s Ambassador Carlos Miguel Pereira told Prensa Latina in Beijing.

Yan Hua, secretary of the Municipal Communist Party Committee in Yongzhou, China’s Hunan Province, discussed the issue during a meeting with Marta Ayala, deputy general director of the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).

The Cuban official also held talks with Zhongbo Ban, mayor of Fangchenggang City, and other local leaders, who reiterated the interest of the BIOCUBAFARMA group in joining the new high-tech industrial zone erected there.

The project includes the construction of a cooperative platform to provide better services in public health and also a joint venture that will develop almost a dozen Cuban drugs to treat heart disease, cerebrovascular diseases, different types of cancer and chronic hepatitis B, among others.

This business is the result of a recent agreement between BIOCUBAFARMA and Guangxi Fukang Medical Investment and Management Co Ltd, which will also cover research, development and commercialization of Cuban medical products.

"The area of Fangchenggang, which is interconnected with the countries of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) by land and sea, offers us good opportunities and confirms that bilateral cooperation in biotechnology has a solid foundation," Ayala noted.

Meanwhile, Ban insisted on the importance of Cuba's participation with its experts and drugs of proven efficiency, quality and international recognition.

The Fangchengggang area is called to become an experimental industrial hub in the development and production of drugs for China and ASEAN countries.

source: ACN