- In 2008, 17 years ago, the company began its collaboration with the FERO Foundation to promote cancer research.
- Since then, more than 50 projects have been launched, ranging from new diagnoses to the development of new therapeutic strategies for breast cancer, benefiting more than 20,000 patients.
- In addition, in 2019 the FERO-Mango Grant was created, which this year celebrated its seventh edition. The aim of the grant is to finance research projects that make advances in the diagnosis of breast cancer, explore new treatments and their response in patients in a more personalised way, or promote immunotherapy, among others.
- As part of its collaboration with the FERO Foundation, over the years Mango has also launched special collections to increase awareness and raise funds to fight breast cancer, featuring the sisters Penélope and Mónica Cruz and Jordi Labanda, among others.
Mango, one of the leading international fashion brands, is consolidating its commitment and support for cancer research through its collaboration with the FERO Foundation, an alliance that began in 2008, 17 years ago.
Since then, and aware of the need to promote science and oncological research to advance in the fight against cancer, the company has financed more than 50 projects ranging from new diagnoses to the development of new therapeutic strategies to tackle breast cancer, which have benefited more than 20,000 patients over the years.
The main project supported has been the Advanced Molecular Diagnostics Programme (DIAMAV), which has enabled breast cancer patients to be better diagnosed and has opened the door to new experimental therapies (clinical trials) for patients without adequate treatment, offering new hope and improving their quality of life. In the last 5 years alone, as a result of this collaboration, nearly 1,000 breast cancer patients have been able to access molecular cancer diagnosis, which has allowed them to receive more personalised and effective treatment, improving their quality of life and life expectancy.
"Collaborations like the one with Mango allow us to continue advancing towards the dream of our founder, Dr. Josep Baselga, which is to cure cancer through research. We are totally in tune with Mango, not only because of the financial support, but also because of their great commitment to society to build a better future together and give visibility to something as essential as research, without which there would be no cure", says Dr. Ruben Ventura, Director of the FERO Foundation.
In addition, in 2019, the FERO-Mango Grant was created, endowed with €80,000, in which a jury of experts made up of oncologists and researchers choose the best project to receive funding. The first winner was Dr Roger Gomis, ICREA professor at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Barcelona, with research focused on identifying the pro-metastatic properties in luminal breast cancer of fibroblasts derived from MSC cells.
Some of these projects aim to explore new treatments, such as the one awarded the 2nd FERO-Mango Grant. In this case, the research of Dr. Antoni Celià-Terrassa of the Hospital del Mar has identified a protein (TIM-3) essential for breast cancer metastasis. This protein allows tumour cells to spread throughout the body, evade the immune system and metastasise to distal organs. Thanks to the pre-clinical results of the project, they have been able to prove that, by blocking the TIM-3 protein, the cancer becomes less aggressive and metastasis is reduced. This research has been the basis for new projects to develop a drug to fight TIM-3.
Other winning projects of the FERO-Mango Grant, such as that of Dr Manuel Juan at the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona, which won the third edition, focus on accelerating immunotherapy in breast cancer. Thanks to his research, it has been possible to develop a new personalised cellular immunotherapy for a relapsed breast cancer patient. With these initial results and the design of a new protocol for generating cell therapies, the aim is to replicate the process in other patients and move towards clinical trials, thus improving treatment efficiency and life expectancy. For her part, Dr. María Muñoz Caffarel of the Biogipuzkoa Health Research Institute, winner of the IV FERO-Mango Grant, has explored how the IL-1RAP protein promotes tumour progression and affects the tumour microenvironment, and how antibodies that block IL-1RAP (which are already being evaluated in clinical trials) can prevent these processes.
The 5th FERO-Mango Grant went to Dr Marcos Malumbres of the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), with a project aimed at discovering the cause of the lack of efficacy in therapies against hormone-positive and metastatic breast cancer. And, in the 6th edition of these grants, the winner was Dr Sara Sdelci from the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), with research focused on developing a tool that can be used in the clinic to determine which triple-negative breast cancer patients will benefit most from therapies directed against DNA repairers (PARPi).
This year, the 7th FERO-Mango Grant, awarded at the gala organised by the Foundation last May in Barcelona, was given to Dr. Mafalda Oliveira of the Centre for Oncological Research at the Vall d'Hebron Hospital, to finance a project to study how T lymphocytes react to treatment for triple negative breast cancer. The aim of this research is to discover specific patterns that indicate whether a patient will have a good response to treatment, achieving complete remission or not. By identifying immunological biomarkers, it will be possible to better select patients who are candidates for treatment, reduce unnecessary toxicities and, in some cases, even shorten the duration of therapy.
As part of the collaboration with the FERO Foundation, over the years Mango has also launched special collections to increase awareness and raise funds to fight breast cancer, featuring the sisters Penélope and Mónica Cruz and Jordi Labanda, among others.
