Instituto Butantan Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro. The Butantan Institute is the largest producer in Latin America (and one of the largest in the world) of immunobiologicals and biopharmaceuticals. In 2001 it produced ca. doses of vaccines and vials of hyperimmune sera. The institute is responsible for the production of 90% of the vaccines used in Brazil. The institute contains a venom farm where researchers milk around a thousand snakes for their venom which is used to make antivenoms and for medical research. The production units manufacture the following bioproducts: The Butantan Institute is one of the major touristic and educational attractions
Oswaldo Cruz 1900, the Federal Serum Therapy Institute destined to the production of sera and vaccines against the bubonic plague was created with Baron Pedro Afonso as director general and the young bacteriologist Oswaldo Cruz as technical director. The new institute was established in the old farm of Manguinhos at the western shores of Guanabara Bay. In 1902, Cruz accepted the office of director general of the institute and soon expanded the scope of its activities, now no longer restricted to the production of sera but also dedicated to basic and applied research and to the building of human resources. In the