Villains, Big Pharma and Stem Cell Research

California political life has some perennial villains. For example, Big Oil. You can't go wrong attacking Big Oil, goes the general political wisdom.

A newcomer to that pantheon is Big Pharma. While the phrase does not exactly roll off your tongue, Big Pharma has major problems with its public image. And now Big Pharma is being invoked in connection with the California stem cell agency. At issue is who stands to benefit from $3 billion in taxpayer-financed stem cell research.

Here is how the matter was defined in an op-ed piece Monday in the San Jose Mercury News written by Jerry Flanagan, health care policy director for the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, and Deborah Burger, president of the California Nurses Association:

"The proposal to apply federal ownership rules to California stem-cell research raises key questions: Do taxpayers who are funding stem-cell research deserve a return on their investment? Should private industry be allowed to charge the public whatever price it chooses to access medical treatments whose discovery and development the public already paid for?"

The article gave this example of past performance involving Big Pharma: "The rights to the blockbuster glaucoma drug Xalatan, developed with $4 million in taxpayer grants at Columbia University, were sold to Pharmacia Corp. for less than $150,000. Pharmacia made $507 million on Xalatan in 1999 alone, charging U.S. patients $50 a bottle for ingredients that cost only pennies."

Flanagan and Burger also noted that there are some signs that Californians should be wary of the intellectual property position of the California stem cell agency.

"At least 13 of the 16 applicants to receive the first round of Proposition 71 grants have already fostered deep ties with the drug and biotech industries," they wrote. "For example:

•"One university grant recipient, the University of California-San Francisco, has staff who serve on pharmaceutical company boards and the stem-cell oversight board (which approves grant applications), receives funding from one of the world's largest drug manufacturers (Bristol-Myers Squibb), and has a research center on campus paid for by biotech giant Genentech.

•"At least eight of 11 universities to receive grants have staff serving on the boards of, or are employed by, pharmaceutical and biotech companies such as Amgen, Genentech, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson.

•"The private Burnham Institute has four board members with ties to biotech or pharmaceutical companies and its president is a member of the stem-cell oversight board."