HEBERSaVax: A Cuban Product in the Fight Against Cancer

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel praised the HEBERSaVax vaccine candidate, a unique therapeutic immunotherapy designed to treat various malignant tumors. Developed in Cuba, the product has shown promising results in Phase II clinical trials, offering hope for cancer patients with minimal side effects.

"Congratulations, Doctor, to you and your team," expressed the President of the Republic of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, on Tuesday afternoon to Yanelys Morera Díaz, scientific leader of the HEBERSaVax product, a novel vaccine candidate designed for the treatment of various malignant tumors.

From the Palace of the Revolution, during the regular meeting of Experts and Scientists on Health issues led by the Head of State, it was very encouraging to hear presentations about a product unique of its kind in the world, made in Cuba, that is showing signs of hope in cancer treatment.

After the meeting —during which, among other questions, the president asked about the potential universe of patients who could benefit— Yanelys Morera, full member of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, spoke with the press team of the Presidency of the Republic about some essential ideas she had shared from the group of Experts and Scientists.

Regarding HEBERSaVax, she spoke in terms of a "therapeutic vaccine," or also "active immunotherapy." The project leader explained that when a tumor grows, it is an actively growing mass that needs nutrients and oxygen. The product attacks the ways in which the disease can nourish itself, while also provoking cellular responses that annihilate tumor progression, thus benefiting the patient.

"We are in the presence of a candidate that has multiple functions," stated Yanelys Morera, who detailed that the product "generates specific antibodies" that cut off blood flow to the tumor, while restoring the individual's ability to attack the cancer with an immune response.

The research, the expert declared, "has gone through all stages," from the first studies in laboratory animals "to the most recent ones we have had, which are Phase II clinical trials, where we have tried to target specific locations."

The project leader emphasized "a type of therapy that is very safe." The vaccine's adverse effects, she said, are scarce and tolerable: "Therefore, they are very manageable elements that allow this candidate to even be combined with conventional therapies without increasing toxicity."

It is a product, highlighted the full member of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, that can have "multiple applications."

Without ignoring that it is still in the research phase, the scientist reflected, it is good to state that among the patients who have received the candidate within the clinical trial framework, many have shown significant positive effects on their quality of life.

The expert spoke to reporters about patients who "have had complete responses," even in cases that were in advanced stages. She recalled that Cuba has "a very strong regulatory agency; and therefore, we must demonstrate that body of evidence to move to new stages."

The project leader traveled to the future, imagined treatments from Primary Health Care, and expressed with passion and modesty: "We are confident that this candidate will continue through all corresponding stages and can become part of that arsenal that cancer therapy needs to achieve better results."

Other voices from the team

"HEBERSaVax is a product with which many clinicians would feel very confident," clinical researcher Julio César Hernández Perera, an Internal Medicine specialist and full member of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, told journalists.

He, who is part of this hopeful research, spoke in terms of "a product of Cuban biotechnology, the fruit of much research," that has "the particularity of being unique in the world."

The researcher and Full Professor also emphasized that it is "a very safe product," because "in the clinical studies that have been conducted, patients have made it evident that HEBERSaVax is very tolerable."

Julio César Hernández Perera does not rule out that in the future the product could be applied "to many solid tumors, since it has a high expression in that protein that favors tumor growth and dissemination." Along the same line of thought, he highlighted advantages such as "low toxicity, or the possibility of using the product in patients with multiple comorbidities."

More research is needed, more horizons need to be explored, more knowledge gained, the doctor said, then emphasized: "But we can say that we are very hopeful about it and that it gives us great frontiers, it gives us that horizon that seems unattainable but speaks to us of a path by which we can reach what we have dreamed of."

Very young, clinical researcher and Internal Medicine specialist Adriana Felinciano Pozo offered journalists a brief testimony about what it has been like to be part of a project that bets on life: "This vaccine candidate offers us many opportunities," she affirmed.

She also brought up the word safety; referred to "solid data"; and associated HEBERSaVax with qualities such as robustness and potential, as an achievement that offers the possibility of combining it with other drugs.

"This product," the expert assessed, "has allowed patients to have a better quality of life, a response without adverse effects; and it is very easy to handle or administer because it is for subcutaneous use."

Adriana recalled that "one of the most frequent causes worldwide, not only of death but also of morbidity and diminished quality of life, is oncological diseases." She said this because HEBERSaVax is a great tool in facing this health challenge, "with great potential in solid tumor diseases, in different niches where we have tested it, such as colorectal cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, ovarian cancer, renal cancer, in advanced patients, and where there have been good responses."

This is Cuba: pushed to extreme limits of asphyxiation by the work and misfortune of imperial perversity, it does not renounce, despite everything, defending the first of all human rights: the right to life. (Source: Cubasi.cu)