Color the News Stem Cell Green

Sometimes it seems that the California stem cell business is more about deriving dollars rather than therapies from the research. On the other hand, perhaps it actually is.

The news this morning has a strong focus on the monetary matters. And later this week, the California stem cell agency will kick off its hearings into dividing up the booty from any inventions developed by businesses that receive CIRM grants.

Here is quick look at the highlights of the fresh fodder from the mainstream media.

Writing an op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, John M. Simpson, the stem-cell project director for the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, said:

"The biotech industry is lining up to take Prop. 71 money and wants as few strings as possible attached. Speaking to biotech executives at a conference his firm organized in San Francisco, Steve Burrill, chairman of the venture capital and merchant banking firm Burrill & Co., described the capital funding being provided by taxpayers in California and a few other states as 'almost like free money' compared to commercial venture capital. That phrase is a tipoff to the lack of any sense of obligation. Clearly defined IP rules, governing such things as price and accessibility by underserved populations, will ensure that businesses meet fair obligations to the public when they take the public's 'free money.'"

Reporter Steve Johnson of the San Jose Mercury News wrote:

"Even with California's stem-cell research institute mired in legal challenges that block most of its financing, businesses in the Bay Area and elsewhere are betting their bottom lines that stem cells one day will yield staggering new medical cures and profits.

"About 100 companies in the United States and an equal number in other countries are trying to develop stem cell-based therapies and other products, according to venture capitalist G. Steven Burrill, who hosted a stem-cell conference in San Francisco last week.

"Coaxing commercial blockbusters from stem cells is costly and could take years. Even so, many of the executives and others drawn to the event sounded optimistic, given the progress they and others say is being made."

And reporter Daniel Levine of the San Francisco Business Times has a follow on our earlier report that Wisconsin wants California to cough up royalties for any CIRM-funded research into embryonic stem cell research.

Reporter Marc Strassman of California Politics Today also has three items: One links to a UC San Diego campus newspaper item about conflict of interest involving a member of the stem cell Oversight Committee; a second quotes Phil Angelides on Prop. 71 bonds two days after the measure passed and a third involves a statement from California State Sen. Deborah Ortiz on proceedings in the California stem cell trial.