Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel considered the existence of the U.S.-Cuban joint venture Innovative Immunotherapy Alliance SA (IIA) to be «highly significant», a sign of the potential for scientific collaboration, the Foreign Ministry reported.

«The possibilities of scientific, technological, academic and cultural exchange between the Cuban people and the American people have enormous potential, and this company is an expression of that,» said the president when he received executives of the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center Hospital on Monday.

Five years ago, this prestigious U.S. scientific institution and the Center for Molecular Immunology of Cuba jointly created the IIA joint venture.

Díaz-Canel pointed out that this Cuban-U.S. biotechnology company -the first and only one so far- «for us has a very high significance, and it has a lot to do with what we aspire to in the relations between our peoples, and that we can always share everything that can unite us, everything that can build bridges.

Dr. Thomas Schwaab, director of Strategic Development of Roswell Park, at the head of the delegation of U.S. scientists who are on the island on the occasion of the anniversary of IIA, considered it «an honor and a pleasure» to meet with the Cuban head of state.

He mentioned that in a meeting of the Board of Directors «we were analyzing the progress achieved in the last five years,» and we were surprised at how much we had collaborated with each other from the scientific point of view, he said.

Among the achievements, he highlighted the publications that have been generated, the patents submitted for registration and the «value that we have reaped in this joint venture», which has doubled, he said.

The renowned researcher also highlighted «the way in which we have reached the lives of patients, not only North American patients who have benefited from Cuban biotechnology, but also Cuban patients».

According to a note from the BioCubaFarma Business Group on September 26, 2018, the creation of the joint venture IIA, which would be headquartered in the Mariel Special Development Zone, was announced that day.

It is, it added, a historic step in the scientific collaboration between the two countries that will allow the advancement of research and the development of new anti-cancer drugs, which can prolong and improve the survival of thousands of patients in the United States.

The new biotechnology company, the text added, will have among its products the drug CIMAVax-EGF, a well-known therapy against lung cancer, and three additional immunotherapy treatments for different tumors, developed in Cuba.

Cuban biotechnologist Ernesto Chico, general director of IIA, commented to the press that in these five years they have managed to take the lung cancer vaccine to the United States, and «we are also treating patients with colon and head and neck cancer, and all this with good results,» he said.

He added that «we have also benefited Cuban patients because we have taken samples and analyzed them in the United States to improve their treatment».

In addition, the Americans «have donated medical equipment to our hospitals, they have trained Cuban doctors in advanced techniques. The essence is that this is a medical collaboration for the benefit of patients in both countries,» said Chico.