Instituto Finlay de Vacunas

The Finlay Vaccine Institute has a historical background in two fundamental institutions of science in Cuba: the Finlay Institute and the Centre for Biomolecular Chemistry (CQB).
On the one hand, the former Finlay Institute, created in 1991, was a scientific organization named after Dr. Carlos Juan Finlay, the Cuban epidemiologist who discovered the transmitting agent of yellow fever, laying the foundations for research into vector-borne diseases. The Institute was created in 1991, with the aim of expanding the achievements of a group of Cuban scientists who researched, developed and produced a vaccine against Neisseria meningitidis (VA-MENGOC-BC®), whose introduction in Cuba had a great impact by eliminating the meningitis epidemic that mainly affected children and adolescents; as well as for its safety, excellent control of serogroup B and proven cross-protection against other serogroups.
In 2006, this institution responded positively to WHO's call to vaccine-producing developing countries to provide a polysaccharide meningococcal vaccine to the “meningitis belt” of Africa. In partnership with Bio-Manguinhos/Fiocruz (Brazil), the vax-MEN-ACW®135 vaccine was co-developed.
The Centre for Biomolecular Chemistry (CQB), on the other hand, was a scientific institution also dedicated to research and development of vaccines with important achievements. A team of scientists from the CQB were the creators of Quimi-Hib, the only conjugate vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae type B based on a fully synthetic antigen.
In 2015, it was decided to merge the two institutions, giving rise to the Finlay Vaccine Institute. This team, faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, developed 3 specific vaccines against SAS-CoV-2: SOBERANA® 01, SOBERANA® 02 (both conjugate vaccines) and SOBERANA® Plus, which proved to be highly efficient, effective and safe. Subsequently, in 2024, the Cuban regulatory body granted registration to the multivalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, Quimi-Vio®, which IFV had been developing for several years.