The La Fe Health Research Institute has been selected to develop innovative medications for diseases without treatment.

The La Fe Health Research Institute (IIS La Fe) has been selected by the Carlos III Health Institute as a node of the State Consortium Network for the development of Advanced Therapy Medicines, known as CERTERA.

The Advanced Therapies unit of IIS La Fe thus becomes a scientific and technical network infrastructure for R&D&I of the Spanish System of Science, Technology, and Innovation, to produce and promote the development of cutting-edge innovative drugs that offer opportunities to cure diseases with limited or no therapeutic options.

IIS La Fe is the first center selected in the Valencian Community as a CERTERA node. This Consortium aims to develop advanced therapy medicines, from academic environments to early-stage clinical trials, always in pre-commercial phases.

Human-use advanced therapy medicines include gene therapy, cell therapy, and tissue engineering. The development of these new therapeutic strategies will contribute to providing opportunities for diseases currently lacking treatment. The incorporation of these new therapies into clinical practice is one of the most significant challenges of precision and personalized medicine.

The scientific director of IIS La Fe, Dr. Guillermo Sanz, highlighted the scientific level of the proposal presented by the La Fe Health Research Institute: "Advanced therapies directly benefit from advances in research. Understanding the biological mechanisms and molecular bases of diseases provides the necessary knowledge to develop more precise and personalized treatments, thus improving therapeutic options available for various medical conditions," explained Dr. Sanz.

According to José Luis Poveda, manager of the Valencia La Fe Health Department, this designation "turns Hospital La Fe into a reference, also in the development and implementation of advanced therapies, avoiding the dispersion of production of these medicines and optimizing the resources necessary for their implementation."

For Dr. Poveda, "having the necessary infrastructure within the National Health System and proper coordination of existing capacities will allow optimizing production costs and enhancing the value and accessibility of these types of treatments."

From the Ministry of Health, Juan Eduardo Megías, head of the Autonomous Office of Predictive, Personalized Medicine, and Advanced Therapies of the Valencian Community, explained that "advanced therapies provide solutions to the population's demands, guaranteeing a fair and equitable distribution to all patients who can benefit from these innovative treatments."

First Authorized Unit

The Advanced Therapies Unit of the Hospital Universitari i Politècnic La Fe became, in 2019, the first authorized unit in the Valencian Community for the manufacturing of investigational advanced therapy medicines, under the GMP (CCC) quality seal.

In 2021, this unit produced and administered its first antiviral cell therapy, 'ViroTCell,' an advanced therapy drug to treat cytomegalovirus infections that can develop in the context of bone marrow progenitor transplants. It is the first antiviral cell therapy entirely developed in Spain in collaboration with the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology and the Blood and Tissue Bank of Barcelona.