On World Breast Cancer Day, Banco Sabadell, through Sabadell Protection and the  Life Care Woman life insurance, has decided to collaborate for the second year in a row with €10,000 in the fight against breast cancer, which will be allocated to a research project funded by the Spanish Association Against Cancer. Specifically, in the ‘Development of new therapies for HER2+ breast cancer’ research project by Dr Gema Moreno-Bueno, which will enable the development of new personalised cancer therapies that are both specific and less toxic.

Imagen de la doctora Gema Moreno-Bueno investigando para luchar contra el cáncer de mama.

This donation is part of Sabadell Protection’s sustainability strategy, under which its Insurance with a cause project strives to move towards a more sustainable economy, linking each of its products to social and environmental causes, thanks to which it has been able to make different contributions to the Spanish Association Against Cancer, the Xarxa per a la Conservació de la Natura, the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital, biobanks, and the Contigo Foundation.

Bernardino Gómez Aritmendi, General Manager of Sabadell Insurance: “In Spain, more than 119,000 women suffer from cancer each year. That is why, since 2018, we have been donating €3 to cancer research for each Life Care Woman policy contracted. This is a life insurance policy that provides an advance of up to €70,000 so that our customers can focus on their fight and recovery if needed. Thanks to our customers, we have already managed to donate €200,000. Collaborating with projects that are achieving such good results as this one only confirms that this is the path that we must follow as a Company”.

This project has led to a new discovery to fight breast cancer, as one of the mechanisms by which some HER2+ breast cancer patients develop resistance to treatments has been deciphered. Moreover, this study has confirmed how to prevent this resistance in animal models by combining existing therapies with a second drug called chloroquine, which is already approved for use against other diseases.

The keys to developing new therapies for HER2+ breast cancer

To better understand the results of the project, Sabadell Protection and the Spanish Association Against Cancer organised the ‘Development of new therapies for HER2+ breast cancer’ webinar, with Dr. Gema Moreno-Bueno, Professor of Biochemistry at the Autonomous University of Madrid and head of the Translational Cancer Research Laboratory at the MD Anderson Foundation.

You can watch the full webinar at this link.