ACT's Caldwell Responds to 'Unease' Item on State Funding of Stem Cell Research

Last week we wrote about how some in the biotech industry preferred federal funding of embryonic stem cell research as opposed to state-funded efforts. We puzzled over the situation and invited those quoted in the item to respond. We promised to carry their responses verbatim. Here is the response from William M. Caldwell, chief executive officer of Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., of Alameda, Ca.

"I appreciate your allowing me to comment on your recent blog of March 16, 2006, "The Big Uneasy." I believe you misrepresented my stand on state funding for stem cell research and welcome the opportunity to correct the impression I believe you gave your readers.

"You are correct that I believe we should see national funding via the National Institutes of Health, especially in my arena of embryonic stem cell research. But I do not regard the state's $3 billion stem cell agency "with unease," as you put it.

"The real issue here is bringing treatments, therapies and cures to the bedside. In an environment where our national government has failed in providing us with the best possible path to this objective, and in fact blocking the ability of science to move forward, California has stepped up and led the nation.

"In August 2001, when President Bush announced a ban on federal funding of all but a limited number of stem cell lines, the states began stepping into this breach by setting out to establish their own stem cell research programs. Bush's restrictive federal policy on this research has given the states a remarkable opportunity, but it also has left them to battle with complex economic, ethical, policy, and moral issues. States are now facing important political and organizational challenges in designing and implementing effective state-financed stem cell programs -- all of which have been institutionalized over decades at the NIH.

"As the CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, a leading biotechnology company focused on developing and commercializing human stem cell technology, I believe our recent moving of the company's headquarters from Massachusetts to California as a direct result of the passage of Prop. 71, is a clear indication that I am a supporter of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). However, as I said at The Stem Cell Meeting last week, state funding of this research is not the best approach. Embryonic stem cell research should be funded by the National Institutes of Health, the major source of research funding for the life sciences in the United States, not each individual state.

"Having states independently fund and regulate embryonic stem cell research will, I believe, create a disjointed morass of dissimilar bureaucratic procedures, oversight, rules and regulations.

"Because of uniform federal standards and guidelines, the funding recipient has consistency in protocols, processes and applications wherever the research is done in this country. States having different agendas, for whatever reason, will potentially impose immense challenges for the scientific community, which typically will conduct collaborations in diverse geographic areas of this country.

"The lack of federal funding in this field has driven some individual scientists to move abroad to countries that are soliciting expertise in this area and are willing to fund this research. Some universities and other research enterprises have opened up facilities abroad to take advantage of a better regulatory climate. Just look at Singapore and which universities have developed a presence there in the past decade. This is completely unsatisfactory from an American perspective.

"I stand by my statement that State-funded stem cell programs are not the ideal solution, but from a scientist's perspective, in a world where our federal government has turned a blind eye to this promising research, it is the only U.S. alternative available."