Preventing Limb Amputations for Diabetics

Cuba’s Experience Integrating Novel Biotech Treatments into Comprehensive Care

Worldwide, 1.5 million limb amputations from diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) are reported annually, 154,000 in the United States, post-amputation five-year survival rates plummeting to 20-25%. In the USA, African American, Native American and poor patients are disproportionately affected. In Cuba, no-cost comprehensive care for diabetic patients is accessible, their care entrusted first to doctor-nurse teams in primary care offices throughout the country. In 2007 a novel Cuban biotech treatment was approved for integration into these efforts, after showing it promoted DFU healing of even high-grade, poor-prognosis ulcers, reducing relative risk of amputation by 70%. Interestingly, this year the FDA approved clinical trials for its formula in the United States for the first time.

Dr. Manuel Raíces Pérez-Castañeda comes to Minnesota from Havana’s Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center, where the new therapy, Heberprot-P, was developed. Since its registration, 125,000 DFU patients in Cuba have been treated with the medication, integrated into an approach that relies heavily on the country’s primary health care network. Dr. Raices will discuss the science behind Heberprot-P’s composition, its results from its use in Cuba, and the process of training to incorporate family physicians into such a comprehensive strategy that brings biotech into community clinics and the homes of diabetic patients.

Dr. Raices is a Cuban biotechnologist with a doctorate in Molecular Biology. He has spent over 30 years as a researcher and senior researcher at Havana’s Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center. For the last decade, his research has concentrated on the social impact of Cuban biotech products in the national health system. In this role, he chaired the scientific committee for six editions of the International Congress on Controlling Diabetes and its Most Severe Complications. For the last 15 years, he has trained medical staff throughout Cuban provinces on the use of novel products developed by Cuban biotech. He is principal author of results that attained a national award from the Cuban Academy of Sciences and co-author of another three that earned awards from the Academy. He will also be presenting at the 2024 American Public Health Association annual meeting in Minneapolis, sponsored by MEDICC (Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba).