Family photo of the project presentation.
Novartis will begin work on its new plant in December and will complete them within 24 months. Once in operation, the factory will directly employ at least 20 people with a qualified professional profile, will generate another 50 indirect jobs and will supply diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals, a substantial component of radioligand-directed therapy, both for Spain and for Portugal and other countries. These new facilities will be added to those that the company already has in Barcelona, El Palmar (Murcia) and La Almunia de Doña Godina (Zaragoza). This project was conceived in a meeting between Alfonso Fernández Mañueco and Jesús Ponce at the Guadarrama Forum two years ago.
Localized treatment of cancer cells
Radioligands are an innovative form of targeted cancer therapy that combines a precision compound, the ligand, that locates cancer cells; with a therapeutic radioactive particle, the radioisotope. This type of treatment locates cancer cells anywhere in the body and emits targeted radiation, directly attacking the tumor, minimally affecting surrounding tissues.
This therapy is currently used for the treatment of a type of neuroendocrine tumors that do not have the option of surgery, and its use is being researching and developing for patients with some types of prostate cancer and other solid tumors such as breast, lung or pancreas.
The location of the new plant in Castellanos de Moriscos, on the outskirts of Salamanca, has a double strategic value. On the one hand, it is located in the center of the Ruta de la Plata, which crosses the peninsula from Cádiz to Asturias, which facilitates distribution both in Spain and Portugal and to the rest of Europe. On the other, it is a project that favors the fixation of population to the territory.
Jesús Ponce has valued Novartis’ commitment to Castilla y León with the attraction to Salamanca of a important investment by the multinational for the construction of one of its most advanced plants in the world. “The factory will improve the percentage that the industrial sector and R&D&i contribute to regional GDP; it will contribute to continuing to make Castilla y León one of the communities with the highest percentage of industrial employment; it will promote economic growth in the region in a time of high international and inter-autonomous competitiveness; and it will help prevent depopulation in the province of Salamanca”, assured Ponce.
State-of-the-art plant
For his part, the president of the Junta de Castilla y León stressed that the most modern plant in Europe of the latest generation anti-cancer drugs is going to be in Salamanca and it is not by chance.
The province of Salamanca, according to Fernández Mañueco, is a hub in the fight once morest cancer in Spain and Europe. It is at the core of a prestigious oncology research ecosystem, in which Novartis already participates, which collaborates with the University of Salamanca in the Extraordinary Chair of Advanced Therapies Novartis-USA; It has links and shared projects with the Salamanca Biomedical Research Institute, IBSAL, and with the Salamanca Hospital, “one of the most advanced in Spain in areas such as hematology and oncology and one of the few authorized, for example, to carry out CAR-T cell therapies”.
The new plant will still create more synergies in this Oncology Research Networkadded the president, who has assured that it is an investment that is aligned with the progress in health care that we are promoting in Castilla y León; with the implementation of state-of-the-art diagnostic technology; the incorporation of advanced therapies; and the reinforcement of research in all its facets, in order to retain and attract the true engine of the future: talent.
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