Valentina Agudelo, winner of the Princess of Girona Award: "No one should die of breast cancer. It's a matter of timing."

The most recent Princess of Girona International Award, in the Start a Business category , began as a university project in Bogotá. Valentina Agudelo was 21 years old, studying Business Administration at CESA University, and, with two friends, for her "Entrepreneurial Spirit" class, she outlined an invention: a device that would fit in the palm of the hand and could quickly, inexpensively, and anywhere detect possible symptoms of breast cancer , one of the leading causes of death among women in Colombia . "We won the fair and I became obsessed with the topic," recalls Agudelo, now 28 and interviewed this newspaper from Barcelona, the day before receiving one of Spain's most prestigious awards .

Through this obsession and over six years of research and testing, Julieta was born. The portable device has already been taken to remote areas of Colombia where mammography is difficult or impossible to access. "No one should die from breast cancer. This is a time, institutional, and operational problem that can be corrected," says the Bogotá native, who also runs the healthcare technology startup Salva Health .

Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer in the world and the fourth in terms of the number of deaths caused, according to data from the Global Cancer Observatory . In Colombia, 9,615 cases were diagnosed in 2023. The problem, however, is that it is detected in advanced stages. This occurred in 57% of cases among indigenous women, 51% of cases among Black women, and 40% among women who did not identify with any ethnicity, according to High Cost Accounts, the national entity with the most robust health information system. In 2020, the Colombian Journal of Cancerology warned that the country has not been able to reduce mortality from this type of cancer due to its inability to detect it early. One of the causes was the barriers to accessing timely diagnosis.

Question: Of all the types of cancer, why did you choose to create a solution for this one?

Answer: Because it's a cancer that, if detected early, has a very high survival rate of almost 95% . No one should die from breast cancer. Seventy percent of deaths occur in developing countries, like Colombia, precisely because of late detection. Therefore, we understood that this is a time, institutional, and operational issue that can be corrected. Julieta and I created an alternative to bring women closer to diagnostic testing.

Q. How critical is the situation in Colombia?

A. Less than 5% of women there proactively get tested. If everyone wanted to do it judiciously, more than 20% would have to leave their region because there are no mammograms there. They are very expensive devices, require a complex infrastructure, and require specialized personnel to operate them.

Q. This started as a class project, how did it become a reality?

A. After presenting the project and winning the [university] fair, I became obsessed with the topic. I started asking scientists and engineers how this could be done. We partnered with a laboratory that developed oncology products to make a prototype, and then, for research and clinical trials, we partnered with the insurance company Sura. At the beginning of 2019, we had a first version; then, we conducted clinical trials. From then until the end of 2024, we continued improving the product. In December, we obtained registration with Invima [the National Institute for Drug and Food Surveillance, which in Colombia certifies that a health development is safe], so we can now manufacture and market the device.

Q. How does Julieta work?

A. It's a small box that fits in the palm of your hand. Six electrodes emerge from the device and are attached to the woman's breast. This allows us to take electrical measurements that determine whether or not there are tissue abnormalities. The measurement takes two and a half minutes. To me, it's magic.

Q. And it operates without internet...

A: Yes, it's part of our value promise: that any woman, anywhere, can get tested. If we're thinking about a woman in Sucre or Caquetá [two Colombian departments], where connectivity is a challenge, we need the device to work. What we do is capture the measurements and store them in an app that can interpret them with or without internet.

Q. Where does artificial intelligence come in?

A. Let's go back to the case of a woman in the middle of nowhere. There's a barrier to current exams: they rely on a highly specialized radiologist who's difficult to ask to move or relocate to perform tests. To eliminate that dependency, we use artificial intelligence to automate the test. All a person needs to do is place the electrodes on the breast, and we take the measurement and upload it to the system. Then there's the predictive component, where we train algorithms to be able to say, 'Hey, these measurements are alerts' [for abnormalities].

Q. But this doesn't replace a mammogram.

A. They're completely different. Mammography is very accurate in detecting tissue malignancy. We, on the other hand, only have two possible outcomes: whether there are significant findings or not. If there are, a follow-up exam is required. Julieta is an alternative when there are no other options.

Q. How much does it cost to produce the device?

A. It doesn't cost more than $300 [about €250]. And the same device can be used on multiple women; you just have to change the electrodes. But we don't even sell the device, just the reading, and we do that very cheaply: it costs between five and eight euros. In Colombia, we have volume-based packages where the test costs 20,000 Colombian pesos [just over four euros]. The idea is for this to be so widespread that the price is very low and we can offer it to anyone.

We are only successful if we save lives, not if we detect them.

Valentina Agudelo, winner of the Princess of Girona Award

Q. Where have you used it?

A. In March, we began a partnership with the Colombian League Against Cancer and the Colombian Air Force. With them, we've flown to La Guajira, Leticia, and now we're heading to the Pacific. We've been to about 15 cities in Colombia. There, we prioritize patients [who are detected with a tissue abnormality] to access ultrasounds or mammograms. Since 2019, about 3,000 women have been tested, and about 400 abnormalities have been detected. Of those, there must be between 50 and 70 positive cases of cancer.

Q. Do you provide support to women who are diagnosed with abnormalities?

A. We're going to implement "tracing agents." They'll contact women diagnosed with an anomia and advise them throughout the process. Julieta's impact or the benefit to society only comes if we get the woman we identify to undergo the complementary test. If she needs it, she can get a biopsy. And if she needs it, she can start treatment. We're only successful if we save lives, not if we detect them.

Q. What did it mean to you to win the Princess of Girona Award?

A. It changed everything for us because very important people saw this news. The award gave credibility to the project and has opened commercial doors for us. Investors who had previously rejected us have called us. We already have our first client in Venezuela who will conduct trials with our devices. Patients have started contacting us to use Julieta, and we have offered to do the trials at home or in our office in Bogotá. We have also been approached by several Latin American countries and even Spanish hospitals. We are motivated to accelerate our regulatory process in other countries to take advantage of this opportunity.

The award gave credibility to the project and opened commercial doors for us. Investors who had previously said no to us called us.

Valentina Agudelo, winner of the Princess of Girona Award

Q. How difficult was it to bring a medical innovation like this to fruition in Colombia?

A. In Colombia, there are many obstacles to creating technology and innovating. We need to strengthen the connection between academia, large institutions, and companies. In healthcare, national regulations are complex and processes take time. For an entrepreneur who doesn't have any money, it's very difficult to survive six years without receiving a single peso in income from their project.

Q. How did you do it?

A. It was a miracle [laughs]. We had investors who believed our story. We also applied for awards: we've earned about $400,000 [approximately €340,000] that way. Last year we won the Unlock Her Future award , which gave us a lot of visibility, and the money we received sustained us for almost a year.