It’s an interesting time. We have, in this moment, as the pressure of the economic situation we must move for rearrangement because in Portugal we have three institutes that come from the beginning of the last century and it was luck for the Portuguese patients because we have three institutions that ran as a multidisciplinary approach. The investigation is not so bad, we have some association and we have publications, but we have a good standard of care. As you know, the results in oncology or in other areas are measured by the satisfaction of the needs of the population in this case and we have good results on satisfaction for the patients. And outcomes as a survivor, our survival curves are absolutely similar and aligned with, for instance.

We have an old tradition in European research areas because we put many times the patients in the EORTC cooperative groups. It was where we began, essentially, in that because in basic research we have not the same opportunities as some countries because we are a small country, we cannot put that fact away. We are a small country, we don’t have too much industry, pharma, that can support us so what we do is to introduce patients in cooperative trials. In this moment we are increasing our activity. In the last years there was an investment in investigation, we have good centres now. We are moving ahead with cooperative projects for the first time in Portugal, cooperative projects in investigation, and we think we can get a dimension similar to the dimension of our country.

How do you handle the increase in translational science?

We have enough technology in this moment for the situation. In Portugal we have access to the same innovation that you have in any country of Europe until now. We are very difficult but we have made the choices and in this moment we continue to support innovation. As you know, the innovation is supported by investigation. It’s not proper to use innovation for instance in medication without the proper lab support.

Which institutes are involved in EurocanPlatform?

We have a good internal situation on that. We know that in this moment, because of the crisis, we have many people running out to England, to Brazil, to everywhere. We know that they are well trained and they have good preparation, postdoc and post-training. We have good preparation.

How helpful do you think ecancer content will be in Portuguese?

Yes, I think it must be a good idea and to success because you have 200 million people in Brazil, you have more than 30 million in Angola, you have in Mozambique, you have quite a lot of Portuguese speakers around the world. I think Portuguese is a good bet and you know that in this moment it’s not so big the investment, the initial investment that you made with ecancer, now it’s a good moment for the Portuguese language too.