Philanthropy in capital letters. This is how the Fero Foundation can be briefly summarized, a 100% private entity promoted by Dr. Josep Baselga that since 2001 has promoted cancer research thanks to the commitment of a group of businessmen sensitive to this disease who want to put their assets at the service of society. Since its inception, Fero has allocated more than 16 million euros to finance more than fifty tangible research projects and has awarded scholarships to 30 young researchers to set up their laboratories in Spain and not go abroad.
With an annual budget exceeding two million euros and fifty stable donors ---including private patrons, companies, and foundations---, the Barcelona-based foundation is chaired by Sol Daurella, president of the Catalan family business Cobega and of the Coca-Cola European Partners bottling group. Dr. Baselga is now the honorary president, and the scientific advisory committee is led by Dr. Josep Tabernero, head of the medical oncology service at Hospital Vall d'Hebron and director of the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), Fero's reference research center.
Amidst the economic and health crisis, the foundation has approved doubling its efforts this year in the fight against cancer with the launch of Startup Fero, a project that seeks to foster young talent, incentivize new lines of research, and bring back to Spain scientists who have chosen to develop their careers abroad due to the difficulty of finding the necessary economic resources here.
Startup Fero represents a step further compared to the current grant program, which will also be maintained and promoted. The big difference is the financial endowment and the time horizon of this new aid. Specifically, Fero's goal is to award the researcher chosen for the Startup Fero program a total of 400,000 euros over five years.
We want to prevent researchers from spending more time seeking funding than researching"This is an initiative that emerged from our scientific committee, aware that to move faster, larger amounts are needed to achieve more impactful and prolonged research. We will offer researchers financial security over five years," says Ruben Ventura, scientific director of the Fero Foundation.
"We want to prevent researchers from spending more time looking for funding than researching; our goal is to give them peace of mind," says Piru Cantarell, general director of Fero.
Commitment to young talent
According to Ventura, the idea is to grant this type of aid each year to a young scientist who proposes a novel line of research and who wants to become independent from their current research center to set up their own laboratory. Fero believes that with this new instrument it will also be easier to be able to repatriate brains that have left Spain or attract foreign talent that may see a real opportunity to develop their research in our country, since the amount and the governance model of this donation is similar to the system used in the United States and in other Anglo-Saxon countries with a powerful fabric of corporate patronage.
Until now, 95% of the 30 feritos awarded with the 80,000 euro programs ---50% of the scholarships have been won by women--- are Spanish. "It's hard to bring international scientific talent to Spain," admits Ventura. Among the foreign scientists who have chosen to research in Spain thanks to a Fero scholarship, the Italian Laura Soucek stands out, a VHIO researcher and founder of the company Peptomyc, considered one of the great hopes in the fight against cancer thanks to the advances achieved with a therapeutic approach based on inhibiting the MYC protein, key in the development of most cancers.
Plan to attract patrons in Madrid and Valencia
In order to finance the Startup Fero project and also increase the number of scholarships, the foundation has launched a plan aimed at multiplying its patrons. "We have set out to double the number of donors in three years," says Piru Cantarell, general director of the foundation, who regrets that the Spanish tax framework does not sufficiently incentivize patronage from a fiscal point of view. "Our donors are so because they are truly sensitized to the cause beyond the tax deduction they can apply," she emphasizes. To increase donations, Fero will focus its efforts on Madrid and will also bet on Valencia, where three years ago it started a project with the Hospital Clínico Universitario.
As a consequence of the pandemic, in 2020 Fero could not repeat the figures achieved in 2019, when it managed a budget of 2.4 million euros. "We have reached almost two million, an amount we are happy with given the situation," explains Cantarell. According to Fero's director, all donors have continued to support the foundation and the decrease is due to the fact that in 2020 the two charity galas that Fero holds each year in Barcelona and Madrid to award scholarships could not be held. Each attendee pays 300 euros for the dinner. About a thousand people attend the one held every May in the Catalan capital, and about 500 in Madrid in October. This year Fero does not plan to hold these galas either.
Of the 2.4 million managed in 2019, 79% (1.93 million) was allocated to finance Fero scholarships and the research projects promoted by the foundation. The remaining 21% corresponds to structural costs (Fero has three employees) and fundraising costs. These structural expenses are covered by contributions made for this purpose by the members of the foundation's board of trustees. In parallel, these patrons and others who are not part of the board of trustees make donations that are destined for scholarships and strategic projects. On average, each patron donates 30,000 euros per year.
Unlike other charitable organizations, the entity does not operate with crowdfunding projects, but has instead opted for large donors from the beginning. Thus, among its patrons are people linked ---some are former owners--- to companies such as Cobega, Caprabo, Planeta, GM Food, Puig, Agrolimen or the asset manager EDM.
Fero's second donor profile is directly companies, such as Mango or the hair straightener manufacturer GHD, which always finances projects linked to breast cancer. The third pillar is collaborations with other foundations, such as the Ramon Areces Foundation or the Bosch Aymerich Foundation. All of them can choose between making contributions to the common fund or fully financing a project or a scholarship, so it is common for researchers to know who their patron is.
Since its inception, Fero has focused on promoting translational research, that is, tangible projects that directly benefit patients. "Our mission is to "establish a direct connection between research laboratories and patients so that they can access the best treatments as quickly as possible," explains Piru Cantarell. "When Dr. Baselga returned from the United States, he saw that there wasn't enough connection between laboratories and hospitals. Fero was born to foster VHIO research, and we have expanded to other centers of excellence," notes the executive.
Strategic projects
Fero's projects and grants are aimed at fighting any type of tumor and are focused on improving the diagnostic phase and, especially, molecular diagnostic technologies that allow for early identification of alterations or mutations that cause cancer or the development of specific drugs that only act on cancerous cells. One of its flagship programs is advanced molecular diagnostics (DIAMAV), which is carried out at VHIO with genomic technology and already benefits between 1,200 and 1,500 patients per year.
For this early molecular diagnosis, Fero's big bet is liquid biopsy, a technology that allows detecting cancerous alterations without the need to obtain a tumor sample, but with a blood or cerebrospinal fluid analysis, explains Ruben Ventura.