The paradigm in the treatment of cancer has evolved in recent years. From non-selective cytotoxic drugs which attack tumour cells but also damage healthy ones and so lead to widely known side effects and a poor quality of life for the patient (patients often refer to these to as ‘my grandma’s times chemo’), we are moving to the discovery of new agents that aim at specific cells-targets whose alternation does not occur in healthy cells. An example of such treatments would be the so-called specific antibodies. Here, in the Alcobendas R&D site of Lilly Spain, targeting our research to better targeted anti-cancer medicines is critical.

Despite this progress in research, we need to continue to evolve and acquire better and deeper understanding on the condition in order to beat it. In recent years, great efforts have been made by both public centres, i.e. the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), and private institutions, to show that cancer is not a single disease, but many diseases and each cancer is specific to each patient. This finding calls for the need for personalised medicine, the future and hope of the fight against cancer. As we know, a patient suffers a certain type of cancer because some of their genome has been specifically altered. Getting to understand “why” this is happening and using it for “what" we need to do to stop it is our fundamental goal. But, how can we conduct personalised medicine? It is truly a new and great challenge. From my point of view, the key is sharing much more and more efficiently aspects of the early phases of drug development with the leading research groups of basic research in oncology.

To reach the point of being able to offer the right treatment for the right patient is a task that private enterprises cannot undertake in isolation: the cooperation of public research centres (academia), hospitals in which clinical research is carried out, and the participation of the private industry, is the perfect triangle to address this challenge.

These large public-private alliances begin to emerge through the establishment of large consortiums that articulate the experience of public research organizations and the technological and productive capacities of pharmaceutical companies, as is the case of OncoTrack, a European initiative where the Alcobendas R&D centre of Lilly Spain participates. OncoTrack is funded under the Innovative Medicines Initiative, a public-private partnership between the European Commission, hospital centres and the pharmaceutical industry. It seeks to identify and establish new screening techniques for promising compounds earlier and more effectively.

We are still far, yet increasingly close thanks to these collaborations, to having the most appropriate model to ensure success, and win the fight against cancer.