The National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) has lost its private patrons, as El País reports and La Vanguardia has confirmed after consulting all parties. The departure announced today of the BBVA Foundation and the Cris Against Cancer Foundation adds to that of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC), which occurred on March 9 and was already known. The exit of the private institutions is motivated by the reputational damage that has affected the oncology research center, after the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office opened proceedings last December over an alleged scheme that could have diverted up to 25 million euros from budgets over 18 years through the alleged rigging of contracts, and also due to the recent resignation of the manager, José Manuel Bernabé, accused of harassment.
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The Cris Against Cancer Foundation decided to leave the CNIO board on April 10, although the break was not made public until today. Precisely on that same day, an extraordinary meeting of the CNIO board was held to resolve its latest crisis with the appointment of Cristina Navarro Enterría as the new manager of the entity, a position that had been vacant since Bernabé’s resignation on February 27.
The Ministry of Science has known about the departure of the private patrons for at least two weeks, although it has made no comment. None of the departing foundations has wanted to offer explanations about their resignation from being part of the cancer research institution. With the departure of all private patrons, only representatives of public administrations remain on the CNIO board, with members from the Government and four autonomous communities currently being the Balearic Islands, Castilla y León, Extremadura, and Murcia.
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The entity’s problems have been accumulating for some time. In September 2025, Bernabé had replaced Juan Arroyo as manager, who had previously been dismissed by the CNIO board along with the former scientific director, María Blasco, after several research group leaders alerted about management problems at the center, a decline in scientific output, and a tense atmosphere in the institution, with reports of workplace harassment and abuse of power.
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In December, the CNIO board approved, at the proposal of the center’s management, a new action plan that includes an internal restructuring.
Unrelated to the departure of the private entities, last Wednesday the journal PNAS, of the United States National Academy of Sciences, retracted the research published by Mariano Barbacid on curing pancreatic cancer in mice because the scientist had not declared his conflict of interest as co-owner of the company Vega Oncotargets.
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