The first CAR-T immunotherapy drug produced entirely in Sant Pau and administered to the first patient, is part of a clinical trial of the centre itself, pioneer in Europe, of phase I CAR-T immunotherapy / II for the autologous treatment of relapsed / refractory CD30 + classic Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin T lymphoma, funded by the Carlos III Health Institute and the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Foundation and Institute.

The Haematology Service of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, directed by Prof. Jordi Sierra and with the collaboration of other doctors, nurses, other personnel from the same service and a multidisciplinary support team, has administered this medication to the first patient.

The trial is led by Dr. Javier Briones, head of the Cellular Immunotherapy and Gene Therapy Research Group of the Research Institute of the Hospital de Sant Pau - IIB-Sant Pau.

Various organizations and foundations have supported the Sant Pau project, such as the Carlos III Health Institute, the Josep Carreras Foundation and Institute and the “La Caixa” Foundation. Thanks to the latter, which has contributed 2 million euros, in the coming months a second academic CAR-T entirely produced in Sant Pau CD19 will be administered for patients with lymphomas and line B leukaemias.

Sant Pau's CAR-T cell drugs are manufactured from the patient's own T lymphocytes and by gene therapy they express a receptor to enhance the destruction of the tumour, the “chimeric antigen receptor” for which they are called CAR-T. The CAR-T of Sant Pau is enriched in a type of T lymphocytes called memory T; these cells in the human body are few in number, but extremely efficient and are generated after a primary infection. Memory T lymphocytes are the cells in charge of intervening in the body's defence in successive infections with the same pathogen.

These cells have a powerful cytotoxic effect, quality of being toxic compared to others that are altered, and they live for many years in our body. "We will select these memory T lymphocytes from the patient himself and equip them with a "weapon” designed to eliminate CD30 antigens in their every detection, which are expressed by lymphoma tumour cells. Thus, in perpetuity, a «detector and eliminator» in the patient's body would remain for any lymphoma cell that reappeared. Ultimately, it is the genetic modification of the patient's own T lymphocytes so that they attack cancer cells ", explains Dr. Javier Briones, clinical responsible of the project.

About the Sant Pau Biomedical Research Institute (IIB Sant Pau)

The Sant Pau Hospital Research Institute's mission is to improve people's health and quality of life through the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge, the generation of healthcare innovation and its application in clinical practice and sanitary policies. For this purpose and within the context of the model of Health Institutes Accredited by the Carlos III Health Institute, the Research Institute of the Hospital de Sant Pau, together with 8 other entities in their environment have joined forces to create a high level research centre, the IIB Sant Pau, oriented to develop new techniques and processes that allow to improve the quality of life of the citizens.

The IIB Sant Pau, which has about 800 basic and clinical researchers distributed in its 54 research groups, executes more than 400 projects achieved competitively in areas as relevant to health as oncology, neurosciences and mental health, cardiovascular diseases or epidemiology, public health and primary care. The Institute also promotes cross-sectional research programs in advanced therapies, genomic medicine and rare diseases, the search for new prognostic markers, treatment and diagnosis of diseases and, more recently, has incorporated multiple highly cross-sectional COVID19 projects, including a bio bank of samples from affected patients.

The research results of this institution have generated dozens of patents and 5 innovative companies in the biotechnology sector. It has 16,000 m2 of facilities attached to the Hospital de Sant Pau, including a new, modern, highly technological building designed under environmental sustainability criteria. It annually publishes more than 1,000 scientific articles in international journals and conducts more than 600 clinical drug trials. It has new spaces specifically for Phase I clinical trials, unparalleled in the country, and operates under the Good Clinical Practice certificate to test drugs for the first time in humans, both in healthy volunteers and in cancer patients.

Thanks to its scientific excellence, the IIB Sant Pau renewed its accreditation as a Health Research Institute in 2016; it is recognized as a CERCA centre by the Generalitat de Catalunya and has obtained the seal granted by the European Commission of Human Resource Excellence in Research. In 2019, it signed the Hypatia letter of Alexandria for gender equality with the aim of promoting equity between men and women in access and promotion in the scientific career.

About the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII)

The ISCIII is a Public Research Organization (PRO or OPIs for its initials in Spanish) dependent on the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the largest public body in Spain dedicated to financing biomedical and health research, which also carries out its own research, training and provision of services to the Spanish science and health systems.

The ISCIII has funded the clinical trial of the Hospital de Sant Pau Research Institute for the extension of CART CD30 therapy, through the 2019 Independent Clinical Research call (project ICI20 / 00060 “PHASE I-II trial of immunotherapy with HSP-CAR30 cells for patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma and lymphoma with refractory or relapsed CD30 expression ”, with € 1,175,051.9, a call related to the promotion of academic research in advanced therapies that appears in the Advanced Therapies Plan of the Ministry of Health); and with the call for PI 2018 (PI18 / 01023, "Pharmacological modulation and design of dual immunostimulatory CARs for immunotherapy with stem memory T cells with high antitumor efficacy", with € 111,320).

About the Josep Carreras Foundation

The Josep Carreras Leukaemia Foundation was born in 1988 with the intention of helping to find a definitive cure for this disease. Its efforts are focused on four basic areas: the management of the Registry of Bone Marrow Donors in Spain (REDMO for its initials in Spanish), the scientific research carried out by the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, patient guidance through a channel of online medical consultations and accommodation flats for patients who have undergone treatment and must spend long periods away from home.

About the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute

The Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, a public centre that belongs to the CERCA network of the Generalitat de Catalunya, was created in 2010 with the aim of promoting biomedical research and personalized medicine in the field of leukaemia and other oncohematological diseases. It is the first European research centre exclusively focused on leukaemia and malignant hematopathies, and one of the few that exist in the world.

About the "la Caixa" Foundation

Give opportunities to the people who need it most, with the aim of contributing to the construction of a more just and equitable society. This is the raison d'être of the ”La Caixa” Foundation, created in 1904. It currently has a budget of more than 500 million euros per year, which makes it the first private foundation in Spain and one of the most relevant at international level.

The priority of the ”La Caixa” Foundation is the development of social programs that respond to the great challenges of our time, such as the fight against child poverty, the promotion of employment, care for people with advanced diseases and the promotion of active and healthy aging. Medical research, excellence training, culture and education, fundamental to promoting progress and equal opportunities, are other strategic lines of action of the Foundation.

For more than 30 years, the “La Caixa” Foundation has been promoting projects in the field of research and innovation in biomedicine and health. These projects are carried out in research centres, universities and hospitals in Spain and Portugal. In the last year, the work of more than 2,300 researchers and doctors has been promoted in more than 350 projects, serving the needs of more than 16,000 patients.