Research at the Federal University in Minas Gerais state has developed what they hope will be Latin America’s first vaccine to treat cocaine addiction, Calixcoca.

Calixcoca works by inducing the production of antibodies that latch on to cocaine in the bloodstream, creating molecules that are too big to pass through the membrane around the brain.

Inoculated addicts would no longer feel the effects of cocaine, giving them little reason to take it again.

In Brazil, researchers see more favorable conditions for Calixcoca, where the vaccine’s potential rollout would be largely up to politicians who hold the purse strings of the

country’s vast public-health system.  This is also a very viable commercial opportunity.