The official kickoff for a proposal to refinance California's nearly 15-year-old stem program with $5.5 billion has been delayed for at least a few more weeks.
Backers of the proposed bond initiative told the California Stem Cell Report last week that the ballot measure will not be filed with state election officials until later in October. Previously, they had said it would be filed by the end of this month.
Melissa King, executive director of Americans for Cures, said there was no major reason for the delay in filing the measure. She said it was just a matter of "wanting to get everyone's views heard, etc."
To qualify for the November 2020 ballot, backers will need to gather more than 600,000 signatures of registered voters.
Americans for Cures is a stem cell advocacy group controlled by Robert Klein, who ran the initiative campaign in 2004 that created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), as the agency is formally known.
Klein was also the first chairman of CIRM.
The agency expects to run out of cash for new awards this year and has no further source of major funding.
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