Before starting a long-awaited new phase, the largest cancer research center in Spain is facing a new crisis, in this court case. The triggering factors are the complaint presented to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office by a dismissed employee and the two trials for unfair dismissal which will be held next year.
This year, the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities received at least two emails from an employee of the National Center for Cancer Research (CNIO) warning of irregularities in the centre’s hiring, sources at the organization confirmed. The second was transferred to the center’s Board of Directors, its highest governing body, whose honorary president is Diana Morant, according to the same sources.
The complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office, presented by The worldit is presented by the person who was operational director of the CNIO until August. He is a telecommunications engineer and business administrator who has worked at the organization since 2005, with a period between 2012 and 2018 in which he was an advisor to the then Minister of Economy, Luis de Guindos. This executive has denounced irregularities in the center’s small contracts since 2007 which have continued over time, and which would amount to tens of millions of euros, as he explains to this newspaper.
This complainant refers directly to Juan Arroyo, who had been the director of the CNIO until his dismissal by the board in January this year. On the same day it was decided to remove María Blasco as scientific director of the CNIO after learning of complaints of workplace harassment, degradation of scientific facilities and other problems. At the moment the complaint remains in the Anti-Corruption field and neither the Government nor any of the subjects involved have received communication from the Prosecutor’s Office regarding the aforementioned events. The Ministry of Science has just convened an extraordinary plenary session of the council for next Tuesday, to “analyze the situation” of the center and address this new crisis.
The complainant assures this newspaper that before going to the Prosecutor’s Office he alerted several senior officials from the Ministry of Science to the situation on several occasions between March and August this year. In them he explained that, as an employee of the CNIO, he was “forced” to report “alleged irregular acts” in the execution of the contracts. At the end of 2024, the amount allegedly affected would amount to around 11 million euros, including contracts with the companies Eiffage and Gedosol, it says. In another of his communications, the complainant warned against “a systematic system of contract modification” which amounted to between 20 and 25 million euros, again according to his version. In his communications, the complainant asked for “protection and protection against possible retaliation”. The interested party assures that the Ministry never responded to him.
This manager was fired at the end of August along with another executive in the organization, the Director of Compliance. The departure of these two employees came with a disciplinary file, already with Maribel Salido as the new interim manager. This is a very unusual procedure, especially in a public research center like the CNIO.
The dismissal of the two people is based on their alleged resistance to the approval of essential contracts which, according to CNIO sources, “jeopardized the economic and physical integrity” of the center. Among the issues blamed on the director of operations was the fire suppression system at the central radioactive facility, which contains radioactive isotopes used for analysis on animals and tissue. According to management, negligence in issuing the necessary contracts forced the plant to close and notify the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), as detailed in internal communications to which this newspaper had access.
This employee’s dismissal is also based on alleged negligence in contracts related to the animal facility, with over 30,000 mice used for research. The other dismissal is accused of failing to open the center’s harassment complaints pipeline in time, among other issues. Both former employees deny these accusations and have sued the CNIO for unfair dismissal.
The parties involved in this scam see a personal vendetta against them. The complainant, who requests anonymity under the whistleblower protection law, sees retaliation for uncovering the irregularities, many of which allegedly occurred when he was also a senior CNIO official. The Study Center and the Ministry interpret the incident as this man’s revenge because he did not obtain the position of director of the organization, for which in theory he had been designated by his predecessor. This person dropped out of the list of candidates for both the interim manager election, won by Maribel Salido, and the permanent one, won by José Manuel Bernabé, according to sources close to the process. A third derivative that they raise in the Government is the reason why this complaint, presented at the end of June, comes to light when criticism of the management of the dana caused the resignation of Carlos Mazón, generating growing political visibility for the Minister of Science and president of the Valencian Socialists Diana Morant, who could be the candidate of the PSOE for the presidency of the Generalitat Valenciana.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Science said it had no evidence that “the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office has notified the CNIO of any complaint in this regard”. He also defended its “scientific excellence” “as the first cancer research center in Spain and the second most important in Europe”. Currently, the Court of Auditors is auditing the accounts for the period 2022-2024, both years inclusive, and the CNIO accounts are audited annually by the General State Intervention, they add. Furthermore, the task of the new managers of the center is to “put down on paper” the situation of the center over the last 18 years. The “Ministry expresses absolute collaboration with justice and maximum determination for any type of irregularity that may have occurred”, they specify; and they add: “The hiring and firing of staff serving the CNIO is a responsibility that corresponds exclusively to the management of the centre, pursuant to article 20.g) of its Statutes”.
Vox complaint filed
In 2020, the far-right party Vox filed a complaint with the then director of the CNIO and two other employees of the center for alleged fraud in contracts signed between 2017 and 2018 with the company “Geosol”. Last year the judge provisionally dismissed the case due to lack of evidence.
Biologist María Blasco, who returned to lead the telomere research group after her resignation, feels vindicated. Before being fired by the board, one of the arguments given was the existence of bicephaly at the CNIO characterized by her confrontation with the manager, Juan Arroyo. The scientist claimed the existence of irregular contracts against the manager who, after his dismissal, returned to his previous position at the CNIO. The former director assures that she asked for Arroyo’s dismissal from the Ministry of Science. “As a result of my requests for a change of director, there have been two attempts at dismissal by the incumbent Science Ministries over the course of 14 years. I wrote letters to the Ministry reporting my distrust in Juan Arroyo, and the threat this represented to me as the visible face of the CNIO. I met the replacement directors who were supposed to come to the CNIO, but in the end, for reasons unknown to me, they did not change director until now,” Blasco assures this newspaper.
Former coach Juan Arroyo declined to comment.
This new judicial storm comes when the CNIO wanted to open a new stage. The center is in a critical situation. Since September, the new director has been José Manuel Bernabé, a member of the body of Higher Faculty Technicians with vast experience in institutions such as the National Commission for Markets and Competition. The council also appointed bioinformatician Raúl Rabadán as scientific director, as EL PAÍS reported. But the scientist has not yet signed the contract because he must respect commitments made with his current employer, Columbia University in New York. However, Rabadán is already working on a strategic plan to bring the CNIO out of the crisis and give it new impetus as a reference for the computational study of cancer. Confirmation is expected in the first months of 2026, according to Ministry sources.
But to achieve its goals, the CNIO needs more funding. Shortly before its latest crisis, some of its essential scientific facilities were unusable or obsolete, its scientific chiefs reported in this newspaper. Likewise, several internal reports had warned of the decline in quality scientific production in recent years.
The Ministry of Science has allocated another three million euros to the institute, which would allow it to close the year without considerable debt. But to continue its technological modernization and obtain additional servers to promote bioinformatics, it will need at least the same additional sum in the coming years, a need that makes the task difficult because the new general state budgets probably cannot be approved due to the current political situation.
The total budget of the CNIO is approximately 46 million euros, of which approximately 22 million come from a state subsidy. The organization is governed by a council whose honorary president is Minister Morant and in which the government, several autonomous communities and private employers such as the Cris Foundation against Cancer, the BBVA Foundation and the Spanish Association against Cancer are represented. These days some council members are expressing their concern that the CNIO has falsely closed its latest crisis, which could lead to the center’s reputation being called into question.
