JAMAICA LOOKS TO CUBA FOR CHEAPER MEDICINES.

One of Jamaica's largest pharmaceutical companies, Lascelles Laboratories, has begun importing supplies from Cuba, reports IPS (March 24, 1999):

CEO Paul Thomas says his company will import a cholesterol-lowering drug made in Cuba called Ateromixol. The drug, a small, blue tablet, is made from the sugar cane wax which is found in the plant's rind or trash which many Jamaicans just throw out. "We will be working with the local medical community to visit Cuba and identify other medical products that can be brought back to Jamaica"; A supply of 30 Ateromixol tablets will be sold here for about $22, compared to about $82 for competing brands of cholesterol-lowering drugs imported from North America and Europe. Dr. Knox Hagley, head of the University of the West Indies' Community Health and Psychiatric Department, said that the anecdotal evidence here is that the drug successfully lowers the cholesterol level.