The Amancio Ortega Foundation will finance the Sant Joan de Déu rare diseases center

The pioneering center focused on minority diseases promoted by Sant Joan de Déu already has the required funding to materialize and become a benchmark in this field. The hospital and the Amancio Ortega Foundation have signed an agreement whereby the entity of the founder of Inditex will contribute close to 60 million euros to build and equip the future Únicas Sant Joan de Déu building.

The center, which will be located on land near the hospital ceded by the Esplugues de Llobregat City Council where the first stone was laid in March, aims to promote knowledge about minority diseases from the pediatric field through research and the application of new therapies. This is because 80% of these diseases manifest in pediatric age, and patients take an average of more than three years to achieve a specific diagnosis.

The center, which will be operational in 2026, aims to shorten these times and provide patients with new therapies and personalized treatments. In addition, the centralization of various services and specialties will reduce the days patients and their families have to travel to the hospital. To this end, it will have equipment such as platforms for genomic studies, as well as a children's multimodal characterization center and facilities to offer therapies ranging from gene and cell therapy to deep brain stimulation.

The center will be part of the pioneering Únicas Network, made up of 30 hospitals nationwide to promote the exchange of information on these diseases. The initiative, promoted by Sant Joan de Déu and the Spanish Federation of Rare Diseases, aims to benefit by facilitating diagnoses and the promotion of new therapies.

The president of the foundation, Flora Pérez Marcote, has signed the agreement together with the managing director of the hospital, Manel del Castillo, who claims that Únicas aims to "get data to move, not patients". This was defended at the laying of the first stone of the center, which also has the support of the Leo Messi Foundation, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, as well as the La Caixa Foundation and the Daniel Bravo Andreu, which collaborate to address minority diseases from the hospital, an international benchmark in the pediatric field.