For decades, people commonly associated the Biological and Pharmaceutical Laboratories Business Group (LABIOFAM in Spanish) with veterinary medicines, vaccines, and pharmaceutical products. Today, the company still does all of that. But it also poses a question: What if a food could become part of a health strategy?
The probiotic yogurt made from buffalo milk stems precisely from this line of thinking. Its formulation incorporates beneficial bacteria designed to promote the balance of the gut microbiota —a microscopic ecosystem that influences digestive functions and plays a role in processes related to the so-called gut-brain axis. Scientists have spent years studying this connection, and LABIOFAM decided to translate that research into a commercial product.
The goal is not to present food as medicine, but rather to use food to support processes in which certain treatments may alter the gut flora, making it necessary to restore it through beneficial microorganisms.
The company began by considering who needed these products first. For this reason, the initial production primarily serves children with specific needs and plans to expand into pediatric hospitals, children’s homes, and other institutions where improved nutrition can also lead to a better quality of life.
Only then will another challenge arise: bringing that same product to the rest of the population once production capacity allows it.
Cheese, made from buffalo milk, rounds out this commitment to making better use of a raw material that, for years, played a much smaller role in everyday consumption.
THE ROOT THAT AIMS TO TRANSFORM A PRODUCTION CHAIN
It’s rare for a cassava to draw attention to a factory —but this one does. LABIOFAM is working on a project to transform cassava starch into cornstarch using specialized technology. Put that way, it might seem like just another industrial substitution, but it takes on a whole new dimension when you follow the process and see everything that can be derived from a single raw material.
The production of this starch is not limited to a single product. The same machinery could be used to produce sorbitol, an ingredient used in detergents, pharmaceutical formulations, and other industrial processes that currently rely on external supplies.
In a context marked by the call to replace imports and contribute through science, this possibility broadens the project’s scope, as the local availability of the raw material would open up new capabilities for sectors requiring specific components. Among these is the manufacture of coatings for pharmaceutical tablets, an application that would help strengthen production linked to the biotechnology sector in the province.
The proposal positions cassava in a different context than the traditional one. From a crop intended primarily for consumption, it is becoming a resource with industrial potential, capable of creating value chains linking agricultural production, the chemical industry, and the pharmaceutical sector.
ANSWERING THE CALL
Diversification is one of the keywords currently defining the company; in addition to all of the above, it has already begun production and is offering for sale a descaler that combines sodium hydroxide and detergent in a proprietary formulation designed for cleaning surfaces, with a less concentrated version for everyday use and a colored detergent.
Alongside this is another in-house development: an insecticide designed to combat insects, fleas, ticks, and other arthropods found in the home.
This range of products has opened up a wide array of opportunities, without losing sight of the projects already underway and recognized within an industry that has been contributing to the region for decades.
Biocan continues to support livestock programs related to the production of milk, meat, and eggs. Veterinary vaccines support the healthcare of the livestock population. Flormaj, Asmasán, romerillo (cobbler's pegs), and Oregano syrups, and a portfolio of herbal teas comprising more than six varieties maintain a pharmaceutical line in the region.
Today, these production efforts are beginning to function as a single network, with one term running through nearly all of these projects —“value chain”— as it represents the method of collaboration that must exist among underlying entities to achieve greater production and commercialization.
Joint production efforts with the Beekeeping Company, LABIOFAM Granma, and LABIOFAM Sancti Spíritus are already a reality. Discussions with the fishing sector to develop collagen and with Geocuba to incorporate drones into agricultural spraying point toward a form of cooperation where technology ceases to belong to a single institution and begins to circulate among several.
Perhaps the mistake lies in telling this story by starting with the products, because none of them came into being on their own; first there was a question, then research, followed by a partnership, later a factory, and finally a bottle, a yogurt, an herbal tea, or a descaler.
That ability to demonstrate that, when science manages to leave the laboratory without losing its rigor, it begins to create something more difficult than a product —it begins to create the future.
