ABSTRACT
Forty-three years after it was founded, with billions of dollars invested, the global biotech industry is still not positioned as a mature low-risk sector for the international investor community. Despite the clear commercial success of a number of leading companies and overall growth of the industry’s revenues, most biotech companies are not profitable and many fail to overcome the formidable barrier constituted by the high cost of the sector’s research and development. However, over the last four years, visible signs of change have appeared, which could be harbingers of an approaching turning point in this trend.

This article analyzes the historic background of the biotech industry’s business models and corporate structures, as well as

their impact on the industry’s financial framework. It examines recent changes implemented by the sector’s main actors—including young startups, venture capital funds and big pharma companies—to mitigate financial risk associated with development of new biotechnology products.

Finally, it discusses the challenges and opportunities that these tendencies entail for Cuban biotechnology development and proposes adoption of business policies more tolerant of the financial risk inherent in this sector, as a condition for attracting venture capital.

KEYWORDS Biotechnology, fund raising, risk management, entrepreneurship, Cuba

Public health systems face the contradiction of skyrocketing cancer incidence and cancer drug prices, thus limiting patient access to more effective treatments. The situation is particularly dire in low- and middle-income countries. We urgently need consensus on the main determinants of this problem, as well as specific, effective and feasible solutions.

Analysis of available data reveals that the problem has reached its current magnitude only recently and is not related to the growing complexity of drug production technology, but rather to corporate profits and the failure of market mechanisms to allocate resources based on health needs.

Despite the obstacles, there is ample room for effective intervention: joint price negotiations, cost transparency, greater support for creation of manufacturing capacity, and regulatory measures that facilitate introduction of generic and biosimilar drugs and reduce intellectual property barriers to better use of flexibilities in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.

Such actions will not be effective if there is no consensus around them, or if low- and middle-income countries act in isolation. This is precisely where international organizations must intervene.

KEYWORDS Public health, price, cancer drugs, inequality, less-developed countries, developing countries, Cuba