Capital against solid tumors. The Hospital Clínic de Barcelona is seeking three million euros for the development of Cart-T immunotherapies against Her2 breast cancer, T-type leukemia and lymphoma, and glioma. The use of Car-t therapies consists of draw blood from the patient, genetically modify it and transfer it backaccording to The newspaper.
The Hospital Clínic is one of the few hospitals that use this type of therapy, which has already been tested in hematological cancers or Lupus disease. In recent years, immunotherapy has taken a prominent role in the eradication of cancer.
Manel Juan, head of the immunology service at Hospital Clínic, explains in statements to The newspaper that “we are looking for money because the costs to carry out these treatments are extraordinary.” Since 2019, the Government of Spain has financed three Cart-T therapies, through the Ministry of Health: one for type B acute lymphoblastic leukemia and another for B lymphocyte lymphoma. In addition, the health facility expects the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Food (Aemps) approve a second multiple myeloma trial.
Spain pays 320,000 euros to pharmaceutical companies for each cancer patient who needs the use of immunotherapies
The State pays 320,000 euros to pharmaceutical companies for each patient who needs immunotherapies. One of the Cart-T that the Clínic now wants to develop is Ari HER 2, aimed at HER2 breast cancer, a type of tumor that presents alterations in the levels of HER2 protein, present in all breast cells.
“CAR-T therapies are the most revolutionary in the world of cancer and have been successful with B leukemia, opening the field to other hematological diseases; A lot of work is being done to transfer this success to solid tumors,” says Mireia Uribe, a Clínic researcher.
Diffuse intrinsic glioma is a type of tumor that forms in one part of the brain stem. It is very minority: every year in Spain there are about 20 or 30 cases. It usually occurs in children around seven years old who develop motor symptoms, double vision or gait instability, for example. The prognosis is lethal. 90% of patients die in the first two years of treatment and, at the moment, only palliative radiotherapy is offered.
