The center for advanced therapies will carry out its first clinical trial in 2025

Aragón is one of the few communities that does not have this infrastructure, which will be located in Miguel Servet, and which will allow the most innovative treatments to be applied in the fight against cancer.

The UTE RubioMorte Orbe Incliza is the winner of the work, with a period of 32 weeks and an amount, with taxes, of 3,25 million euros

Aragón will no longer be in the queue in terms of advanced therapies, since it is one of the last autonomous communities to have an Advanced Cellular Therapies Unit. An old demand of the Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón) and the Spanish Association against Cancer. The UTE RubioMorte Orbe Incliza is the winner of the execution of the works on spaces of the translational research unit (UIT), on the first floor of the Miguel Servet University Hospital, which will allow the application of the new CAR-T cell immunotherapies, it is say the most innovative treatments in the fight against cancer.

The intervention area will be located in the area of ​​the old operating rooms located in the hospital center, currently occupying a useful area of ​​almost 2.000 square meters. In addition to the creation of a clinical research area, it will also have an administrative area, a laboratory area (this will be the priority and the one that will begin to be executed first) and support space for them.

The work to adapt the space, which will include clean rooms, will begin on July 1 and has a completion period of 32 weeks, that is, around 8 months, so its first clinical study could begin in 2025. The estimated value of the contract is almost 2,7 million euros without taxes and with these it rises to just over 3,25 million.

FOR Aragón is a "unique infrastructure" since it will allow having a facility where these advanced therapies can be produced and applied, although first "the room must be accredited in order to develop this type of therapies in the medium term."», says Diego Sánchez, Araid researcher at IIS Aragón and scientific director of the Advanced Therapies Unit. This new infrastructure will allow the production of CAR-T cell therapies that have been shown to be positive for hematological cancers; since they "offer an alternative" for those patients who had "relapses." In this case there will be treatments in which the patient's cells will be modified in the laboratory so that they attack cancer cells. There will be operating rooms in which it will be possible to accredit the hospitals (Servet and Clínico) and transfer what "worked in the laboratory" to patients, says Sánchez. In principle the IIS team is closed but over time incorporations are not ruled out, according to the tests.

For his part, Patxi García Yzuel, manager of the Association Against Cancer in Aragon, also recognized his satisfaction for "having this technology for novel and promising treatments" against cancer, since it will allow access to therapies "key to extending your life." without having to leave the community. Until now, patients had to go, usually to Barcelona, ​​or Madrid and there "spend several weeks or months away from home, with all the inconveniences, not only for the patients but also for their families," he explains.

Donation from Clementa Soria

This new infrastructure is possible thanks to the posthumous donation of 1,9 million euros made by Clementa Soria, who died in 2021, to the Spanish Association against Cancer to support oncological research in Aragon. Zaragozana by birth (she came into the world on December 24, 1945, and died of cancer very quickly in December 2021. A teacher by training and by profession, for a few years she worked in Catalonia, although little by little she moved closer to the Aragonese capital, where her parents lived. She liked to travel and she "enjoyed life", although she was also "austere, meticulous and super saver", as defined by her friend and executor Rosario García, on the day the donation was known. The project also has added financing from IIS Aragón and the Government of Aragón until reaching more than 3 million euros of investment.

Source: The newspaper of Aragon