El Corte Inglés and its support for Research
The English Court continues to support breast cancer research and advances its collaboration with the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) with the financing of the project led by Dr. Julio Delgado, for which the company committed last year to deliver one million euros to support the design work of a new personalized cell therapy drug.
This study is a Phase I clinical trial of a treatment for HER2+ breast cancer. It is being developed mainly at the Clinic Barcelona Comprehensive Cancer Center and its objective is to evaluate the toxicity and effectiveness of ARI-HER2+ cells in the treatment of HER2+ breast cancer, establishing the most appropriate dose for each patient. The objective is to lay the foundations for the development of a new therapeutic option for people with this disease.
This research project aims to design a new personalized cell therapy drug that would be effective in patients without treatment options. It would consist of genetically reprogramming the patient’s own immune system. The clinical trial is being carried out in three Spanish institutions, the Hospital Clinic Barcelona-IDIBAPS in Barcelona, the Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid and the Clínica Universidad de Navarra, where different doses of the medication will be tested until the most appropriate amount is reached to continue with this development. The Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products has already approved the new product and it is expected that the start of the clinical trial will be approved in the coming weeks.
Dr. Julio Delgado’s research project, which El Corte Inglés began funding last year in 2023, continues the study on personalized immunotherapy in breast cancer developed by Dr. Aleix Prat (also funded by El Corte Inglés).
Research projects funded by El Corte Inglés
The collaboration program between El Corte Inglés and the AECC to contribute to breast cancer research has led the company to finance four projects in their entirety.
2014. First project. This research support began in 2014 with a first project that was led by doctors Cristina Cruz and Judith Balmaña, the latter researcher Head of the Hereditary Cancer Genetics Group, at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO). It focused on research into new therapeutic alternatives to reduce the risk of relapse of hereditary breast cancer treated by surgery and chemotherapy.
2017. Second project. Led by Dr. Violeta Serra, which began in 2017 and was also developed at the VHIO in Barcelona. The study aimed to design a predictive test that would allow precision medicine, designed for each patient. This investigation ended at the end of 2021.
2019. Third project. The research was led by Dr. Gonzalo Millán from the Andalusian Center for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine of Seville (CABIMER) and focused on hormonal therapy, with a planned duration of four years. The research focused on analyzing the role that a new tumor marker plays in the hormonal signaling pathway to discover possible new therapeutic lines.
2020 Fourth project. The study, led by Dr. Aleix Prat, director of the Institute of Cancer and Blood Diseases at the Clinic Barcelona Comprehensive Cancer Center, consisted of activating the patient’s own immune system so that it is able to recognize and eliminate tumor cells. To activate it, there are numerous types of approaches, from drugs to a more personalized type of treatment called Adoptive Cellular Therapy or ACT. It is a type of immunotherapy that in its most general form consists of isolating the cells of the patient’s own immune system and manipulating them in the laboratory and then returning them to the patient through a transfusion to attack the cancer.
This research, focused on personalized immunotherapy, was carried out by a multidisciplinary team from the hospitals Clinic Barcelona Comprehensive Cancer Center, 12 de Octubre (Madrid), the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) (Barcelona) and the Clínica Universidad de Navarra. The main achievements achieved in these years have been the creation and validation of the TILs product by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPs) and the start of the clinical trial with the first patients treated.
El Corte Inglés has maintained close collaboration with the Spanish Association Against Cancer for years, and the result of this is the joint project they develop against breast cancer. This is an initiative that has evolved very positively and has allowed the company to fully finance the four research projects so far and commit to the new study by Dr. Julio Delgado.
