The government of Claudia Sheinbaum delivered in 2025 at least three contracts amounting to 227 million Mexican pesos (around 12 million dollars) to Neuronic Mexicana S.A. de C.V., a company that is part of BioCubaFarma, the state pharmaceutical conglomerate of the Cuban regime, for the purchase of oncology medications.
The contracts were awarded directly, without a competitive process or public bidding, and aim to purchase thousands of cancer medication pieces such as vincristine, methotrexate, and doxorubicin, as revealed by a report from Latinus signed by the journalist Ana Lucía Hernández.
The first and largest of the agreements was signed in February 2025 by the state company Virmex, which awarded Neuronic Mexicana a two-year contract worth up to 201 million pesos for the purchase of doxorubicin and vincristine, medications used to treat leukemia and malignant tumors of the lymphatic tissue.
The second contract was signed by the Mexican Social Security Institute with Neuronic Mexicana for the purchase of up to 28,200 units of the oncology drug methotrexate, for an amount of up to 10 million 575 thousand pesos.
In November 2025, a third agreement was signed, effective throughout 2026, under which IMSS committed to pay up to 15 million pesos for 33,600 pieces of ketamine.
The three contracts were signed by Tania Urquiza Rodríguez, the legal representative of Neuronic Mexicana, identified as a Cuban entrepreneur.
The Superior Audit Office of the Federation documented, in its review of the Public Account 2023, that Neuronic Mexicana made bank transfers to the Cuban laboratory AICA and to BioCubaFarma Treasury —both entities owned by the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel— using funds from payments made by Virmex.
The legal representative of Neuronic Mexicana confirmed in an interview with the Audit Office that the company is part of the Cuban state's business conglomerate.
The report highlights a striking paradox: "Mexico buys vincristine from Cuba, a country that does not appear as a global reference in the production of this drug and that is even scarce in Cuba, according to available references on medical supply on the island."
Indeed, Cuba is facing a chronic medication crisis: in 2026, more than 70% of essential medications are unavailable on the island, including the oncological cytostatics that the Mexican government purchases from the regime.
These purchases occur in a context of rising diplomatic tension. The government of Donald Trump has warned those who finance the Cuban regime, and Cuban-American Republican congressmen such as Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Giménez accused Sheinbaum of being a complicit in human trafficking for maintaining the program of Cuban doctors in Mexico.
The Embassy of Mexico in the United States rejected those accusations last Friday, stating that the program ensures direct compensation and dignified working conditions for Cuban professionals.
Sheinbaum has defended both the medical program and the commercial ties with Cuba as sovereign and humanitarian agreements, while the Superior Audit Office of the Federation had already detected previous irregularities: in 2023, Virmex paid 15.39 million pesos for ten batches of Neuronic medications that had been rejected due to quality defects by the Federal Commission for Protection against Sanitary Risks, without applying sanctions or rejecting the batches.
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