Saturday, March 31, 2007

SB771: CHI Takes 'Not-So-Subtle Jab'

California's biomedical industry has already begun its lobbying campaign against legislation to guarantee the state shares in the potential bounty from products developed from its $3 billion stem cell research effort.

Writing on Law.com, reporter Cheryl Miller said members of the California Healthcare Institute were pounding the hallways in the Capitol a few days ago armed with a "not-so-subtle jab" at SB771, which does not face its first legislative test until April 11.

Miller said that their talking points included the following:
"Recent legislative proposals that focus on revenue-sharing thresholds and pricing and access requirements place direct financial return ahead of the far greater benefit to all Californians (and people everywhere) from the development of innovative technologies. Such provisions are sure to discourage the private investment needed to bring state-funded science to market."
Miller also quoted the author of the bill, Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, as saying,
"I expect that there will be people who are not going to praise this bill. But they're going to have to find a way to critique it without saying we don't want the state to get any money."
CHI members have a number of legislative fish to fry so it is not clear how widely their stem cell message was distributed.

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