Corruption and embezzlement, prof. Federico debunks the accusations: "It is I who demand justice"
The researcher who ended up at the center of the Modena prosecutor's investigation intervenes publicly bringing the evidence that he says would make the accusations against him false, both on the trials and on the management of the Cancer Registry
Modena TODAY – 27 October 2018
As announced, Prof. Massimo Federico wanted to intervene personally to clarify his position after the publication of the news relating to the request for indictment brought by the Modena Public Prosecutor's Office for an investigation launched more than six years ago. The university professor - recognized as one of the best researchers in the world in the field of lymphomas - held a press conference this morning in which he effectively wanted to "dismantle" the objections raised by the judiciary about his work point by point.
The most significant accusation made by the prosecutors concerns the alleged crime of corruption, relating to 11 different trials of anticancer drugs. Disputing each charge, Federico cited a specific case as an example, that relating to a product of Cephalon – later Teva Italia Srl – presented between 2009 and 2011. The doctor underlines how it was not he who promoted the study, but the Italian Lymphoma Intergroup chaired by Dr. Umberto Vitolo, then receiving the endorsement primarily of the Ethics Committee of Alessandria and then of another 40 Italian Ethics Committees as a 'non-profit' study. Federico therefore distances himself from what he defines as "false accusations", emphasizing how his role was limited to the transmission to the Modena Ethics Committee of documentation produced by others.
Secondly, the investigation touched on the role of the Angela Serra Association, founded and managed for years by the oncologist, hypothesizing the crimes of embezzlement and abuse of office for the "occupation" of the spaces of the Polyclinic at the Oncological Center Modenese (COM) and for the presumed advantage obtained from the use of utilities, spaces and equipment. “Only a Martian would think that the Angela Serra Association occupied the fourth floor of the COM without a contract. The COM was created by Angela Serra”, highlighted Federico, recalling that it was the organization that financed, created and donated the structure to the Modena community.
The researcher then cites the deed of donation dated 1 April 1999, a notarial deed with which the Angela Serra Association donates the COM to the Polyclinic and University, which reaffirms the commitment to host the Association in the premises of the third and fourth plan, formally managed by Unimore. A document which was not followed by any detailed agreement and which could therefore have generated misunderstandings regarding the practical management of the spaces, so much so that in 2013 the University wrote a formal letter to ask for the payment of a rent, opening an internal dispute. To the objections of having "taken advantage" of the spaces and utilities, Federico replies: "We are by no means faced with an occupation 
abusive. Conversely, in those premises a marvelous work of research and solidarity was carried out, known to all and above all known and endorsed precisely by the donors of the COM who benefited from the work that had been carried out there since 1980 and which is now being passed off as parts read!”.
Finally, the node of the Cancer Registry, founded by Federico in 1989 and then at the center of a dispute between the doctor and the Ausl, which culminated in a blitz by the Nas and the seizure of computer equipment containing the sensitive data of thousands and thousands of patients . A case that caused discussion between 2014 and 2015, with a heated dispute between the oncologist, the University and the Healthcare Company, in the face of reluctance in delivering sensitive data after the request made by the Ausl. The professor clarifies: “In 1999 the management of data collection and recording was entrusted to the Angela Serra Association by the General Director of the Polyclinic at the time (Dr. Augusto Cavina, ed) with a regular resolution. I have never appropriated the Cancer Registry, nor have I ever refused to return it. I never intended to reverse the title of possession of the register, which remained in my availability as Manager of the same. The register was simply "kept" by me at the oncological center due to the position I held and the absence of any provision for the revocation of my position as Manager by the bodies entitled to issue such a provision". For Federico, therefore, also in this case what the person concerned defines only as his "dutiful care and preliminary verification of the person to whom I had to return the documentation" was considered as embezzlement.
The accusations
Experiments presented falsely to the ethics committee of the Polyclinic and approved by the general management as a non-profit, when in reality it was a question of studies financed by pharmaceutical companies in search of visibility, which paid thousands of euros merged - according to prosecutors Pasquale Mazzei and Marco Niccoli - into the accounts of Angela Serra against cancer and Fil (Italian lymphoma foundation) chaired by the professor Maximus Frederick. I am five cases of corruption challenged to the oncologist, for which the Public Prosecutor's Office has requested indictment. I am with him 13 managers and 5 pharmaceutical companies are under investigation for experiments ranging from 2012 to 2015 through which the non-profit organizations managed by Federico would have collected over one million euros. I am 11 studies finished in the crosshairs of the investigators, who initiated the investigation thanks to a wiretap picked up while they were investigating the cardiology department. The drugs for which clinical trials have been requested and obtained are: Adcetris from Takeda Italia, Bendamustine and Folotyn from Mundipharma, Lenalidomide and Romidepsin from Celgene.
