Panorama de biotecnología industrial em saúde na América Latina e Caribe

Abstract

There is some uncertainty about the extent to which Latin America and the Caribbean have participated in the advances of health-related industrial biotechnology. This article reviews the available literature and seeks to provide an overview of the prevailing situation. In general, national governments and multinational agencies have provided most of the health-related biotechnology in investments within this region. Efforts to achieve technology transfers, a subject of prime concern, have been developed by a number of programs inclluding the WHO Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, the UNDP/UNESCO/UNIDO Regional Biotechnology Program for Latin American and the Caribbean; PAHO's Program for the Regional Development of Biotechnology as Applied to Health; the PAHO/WHO Extended Program on Immunization (EPI); and PAHO's Regional System of Vaccines (SIREVA). Regarding current production capacity some successful efforts have been made to produce a variety of therapeutic products including recombinant and natural interferons, interleukins, insulin, and recombinant streptokinase, but in general, the region's current potential in this areas is at best incipient