'Less Than a Drop in the Bucket' -- Dueling Perspectives on California's First Stem Cell Royalty Check

California is counting its first royalties from a 13-year-old effort to develop stem cell cures and has declared that it hopes that the check will be the first in a flood of payments.

Others, however, warn of the dangers of over-excitement about the $190,345.87 payment from the City of Hope, saying that it is "less than a drop in the bucket" compared to the cost of the $3 billion California Institute for Regenerative Medicine or CIRM, as the state stem cell agency is formally known.

Here is a longer look at the two perspectives in the wake of Monday's royalty report.

John McCain, Washington Times photo

 The royalties were generated from a $5.2 million award in 2012 to the City of Hope for research involving a potential therapy for glioblastoma, one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer and the type afflicting U.S. Sen. John McCain. 

"A little piece of history" is how Kevin McCormack, senior director for communications for the  stem cell agency, described the royalty in an email. He also wrote on the agency's blog,

"It’s the first of what we hope will be many such checks, helping repay, not just the investment the state made in the field, but also the trust the voters of California showed when they created CIRM."

McCormack continued,

"Maria Millan, CIRM’s President & CEO, says the amount of the payment is not the most significant part of this milestone – after all CIRM has invested more than $2.5 billion in stem cell research since 2004. She says the fact that we are starting to see a return on the investment is important and reflects some of the many benefits CIRM brings to the state."

Asked for comment on the payment, John M. Simpson of Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica, Ca., who was deeply involved in the development of the agency's initial intellectual property rules, said,

“Once again it’s clear that Proposition 71 (the ballot initiative that created the agency) was oversold by its sponsors. Despite campaign hype, it’s only now that we are seeing the first royalty payment and a rather modest one at that."

Bernard Munos

Bernard Munos, a senior fellow at FasterCures. a think tank aimed at speeding medical research, elaborated at more length in his response to a query by the California Stem Cell Report. He said,

"The $200,000 check from City of Hope should be acknowledged, but it only represents 0.02% of the $1.1 billion in royalties that were promised to California taxpayers -- and does not even cover the annual salary of CIRM’s part-time vice chairman.

"It is also unclear how the licensing (by the City of Hope) of a discovery to a New York-based company, Mustang Bio, Inc., will generate jobs and investment in California, as proponents of CIRM originally promised voters. 

"The world has changed since 2003 when George W. Bush severely restricted government-funded research on embryonic stem cells. The Obama administration lifted those restrictions, and regenerative medicine has diversified into many lines of research that have taken the field well beyond the embryonic vs. adult stem cell debate of the early days, which gave CIRM its initial impetus. Looking ahead, it is unclear whether CIRM still has a role to play. 

"Regenerative medicine offers enormous promises, and Californians may indeed want to leverage that opportunity by supplementing federal funding with their own. We have proposed a way to do this, as an alternative to developing plans to extend CIRM with another $5 billion in California bonds, to be paid out of the state’s general fund. 

"Whenever a multi-billion dollar fund is created, it tends to attract all kinds of people who want a piece of it. Unless strong governance is in place with clear rules on how the money must be disbursed, some of it is likely to fund projects that don't get the scrutiny they should, or even lie outside the organization's remit. Inadequate governance has been a problem at CIRM, as documented by reports from the Institute of Medicine -- now the National Academy of Medicine -- and others. Before consenting to an extension of CIRM's mandate, Californians should look at the returns they have gotten, and are likely to get (or not) from CIRM's past investments, and should demand an independent assessment of whether these investments are consistent with what they were promised and with CIRM's mission."

Marcy Darnovsky, FIXED photo

Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, in Berkeley, Ca., said in her email,

"Many Californians voted to establish CIRM because they believed the promises that its backers were making: that we'd soon see revolutionary medical breakthroughs, that our state would get back a billion dollars or more in royalties, that the agency would be run by an 'independent' board. Almost a decade and a half later, none of that has come to pass. 

"The rules and regulations about royalty returns to California are confusing and unclear, and need to be made far more transparent. But it's hard not to ask whether this first royalty payment is anything other than theater, meant to assuage and allure voters now that CIRM is talking about another ballot measure for $5 billion more from the public purse.

"The royalty check from City of Hope is less than a drop in the bucket. It's almost as if you loaned someone $3000 (at your own expense) because they promised to do some good work and pay you back $1000. Years later, they haven’t finished the work but they are offering you twenty cents instead of $1000, and asking for thousands more."

The debate over what Millan has called the "value proposition" of the agency's work is likely to intensify over the next two years. CIRM expects to run out of cash within that period and is pinning its hopes for survival on a proposed $5 billion ballot initiative on the November 2020 ballot -- a campaign that should excite some considerable interest if it is not heavily overshadowed by the presidential election that year.

Clarifying the Path to Cash: California Looking for Money from Its Stem Cell Investments

CIRM chart

The $3 billion California stem cell agency is moving to revise its rules for royalties and revenues that may be derived from its research, simplifying them while focusing more sharply on likely cash-generating products.

The proposal comes before the agency's Intellectual Property  (IP) Subcommittee Thursday at a 10 a.m. meeting that has a number of locations throughout California where the public can participate.

A document prepared for the meeting said the complexity of the existing IP regulations has led to disagreements, created an excessive administrative burden and treated for-profit and non-profit enterprises differently.

John M. Simpson of Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica, Ca., who participated extensively in the early development of the IP rules, praised the proposed changes.

Responding to an inquiry from the California Stem Cell Report, he said:

"The proposed changes in the IP regulations should simplify oversight for CIRM and make expectations for all awardees clearer.  It puts nonprofit and commercial entities on the same footing with regard to their revenue sharing responsibilities. Most importantly the new rules will emphasize getting revenue for the state  from  companies who actually commercialize the results of CIRM-funded research.  That’s exactly as it should be. 

“Nonetheless, despite the overblown promises of Prop. 71 campaigners, the state as yet to realize any revenue from research CIRM has funded.  There could be a little money this year."

"This change in the IP rules makes sense and is the best way forward,  but realistically I doubt the state will ever see significant revenue from the research it has funded."

Proposition 71 created the California stem cell effort, known officially as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine or CIRM. One of the promises of the 2004 campaign was that it would lead to as much as $1.1 billion in revenues to the state. No royalties have yet been announced. 

Telephonic locations for the public exist in Irvine, Napa, South San Francisco, San Diego and San Francisco in addition to the agency's headquarters in Oakland. Specific addresses can be found on the agenda, which also includes directions for a listen-only audiocast.
 

Royalties and California Stem Cell Research: $1.1 Billion Promise Still to be Fulfilled

California’s 11-year-old stem cell research effort was born with the extravagant promise that it would generate something like  $1.1 billion in royalties that would flow into the Golden State’s coffers.

None of that bonanza has yet surfaced, but there is no doubt that scientific research generally has the potential to generate economic value for state entities. A case in point was news this morning in the Los Angeles Times that the sale of drug rights (intellectual property or IP) held by UCLA will generate “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The story by Teresa Watanabe said the deal involved a prostate cancer drug developed at the campus. She reported,

“Royal Pharma, a New York-based pharmaceutical company, paid $1.14 billion for royalty rights to the drug known as Xtandi. It was the largest-ever technology transfer deal involving a University of California invention.”

 California’s $3 billion stem cell agency is not involved in the UCLA-Royal Pharma arrangement. However, the agency, known formally as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), has acquired other bits and pieces of IP as the result of the $1.9 billion that it has given to researchers over the last decade.

So far the agency has not been able to turn that IP into cash largely because no therapies have reached the marketplace, although the agency has a number of clinical trials underway.

Back in 2005, the royalty promises made during the ballot campaign that created the stem cell agency came under fire as the result of actions by the man who headed the campaign, Robert Klein. He also served as the agency’s first chairman.

Bernadette Tansey, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, reported,

“The billion dollars in royalties that voters were told could flow to the state if they passed California's $3 billion stem cell research funding initiative in 2004 may turn into an empty promise.”

Stuart Leavenworth, then editor of The Sacramento Bee’s editorial pages, wrote,

“In marketing this initiative, proponents said the state would receive not only miracle cures and reduced medical costs, but also up to $1.1 billion in royalties from new stem cell innovations.

“Now we are learning that this promise, at best, was misleading. At worst, it was a cynical ruse.”

The issue turned on whether tax-exempt bonds would be used to finance the agency, which depends solely on state borrowing. Federal tax laws restrict the use of such bonds. To date, however, no tax-exempt bonds have been used to support CIRM, according to last report.

The use of taxable bonds, however, raises the cost of borrowing and the cost of the research. Estimates in 2004 were that that the total cost of the agency would exceed $6 billion, including the interest on the borrowed $3 billion. No revised, upward estimate has been made public, if it exists.

The issue of the agency’s IP, its possible value and protection has surfaced only intermittently over the years. The most recent mention came last November in the agency’s plan for spending its last $900 million. (The agency expects to run out of cash for new awards in less than four years.)

The agency’s five-year plan said that it would “demand creation (from universities)  for the out-licensing of CIRM-funded technologies with a greater opportunity to achieve a financial return.” Aligned with that is a $75 million proposal to partner with specific enterprises and give them pick of the agency’s best research that does not currently have a partner. (See here and here.)

Relationships with universities can be touchy at the agency because its governing board includes top executives from virtually all of the major, academic stem cell research centers in California. Sometimes those board members can be protective of the interest of their institutions, which have received hundreds of millions of dollars in agency cash over the years.

For those who want to dig more deeply into CIRM’s IP policy, the regulations can be found here and here.

BS and Ebola, Hype and Stem Cells

Hyperbole surrounding both stem cells and Ebola research has surfaced recently with cautionary notes concerning the damage it can do to the reputation of researchers and science.

Just last week UC Davis stem cell scientist Paul Knoepfler took up the matter in a piece headlined “The Cheating Death Excitation.” Over on the Pacific Standard Web site, Michael White of the Washington University School of Medicine wrote an article titled “Why Scientists Make Promises They Can’t Keep.”

White’s entry point was a flap last month about whether more federal funding would have meant faster progress on an Ebola vaccine. The hooha started with a statement by Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, and included a retort by Michael Eisen of UC Berkeley that Collins’ comments were “complete BS.”

Subheads in White’s Oct. 31 piece summarized his view nicely,

“A research proposal that is totally upfront about the uncertainty of the scientific process and its potential benefits might never pass governmental muster.”

“We, scientists and society, need to be more honest about the uncertainty inherent in the scientific process and in any projection of society’s future needs.”

Out west in California, Knoepfler remarked Nov. 6 on his blog,

“Can stem cells help many people in the immediate future to escape death? Recent headlines on new stem cell-related clinical developments would make you think so and they go a step further to indicate that such miracles are just around the corner.”

He continued,

“In the last few weeks there’ve been an unusually large number of papers and newspaper headlines about stem cell clinical developments, and as much as I hate to say it as an advocate for the stem cell field, many of these cases have been hyped.

“The reporters, their headlines and in some cases even some of those involved in the research seemingly would like you to think that cures for all kinds of bad things are about to happen tomorrow.”

Knoepfler said stem cell technology will be important and it will lead to “humanity changing events…but we aren’t there yet.”

“It’ll probably take another decade or two to really get closer to being a reality. Raising expectations sky high right now with over-the-top claims and headlines is not helpful to progress.”

Our comment: In the case of the $3 billion California stem cell agency, it has been burdened by the hype of the 2004 ballot campaign that created it. Voters were led to believe that miracles were in the offing and only 10 years or less away. That perception has not served the agency or the people well. Nor does it enhance the credibility of stem cell researchers, who were largely silent in 2004 about the grindingly slow process of science and government regulation of new treatments. Yes, ballot campaigns do need to generate excitement and hope. They also have a propensity to degenerate into falsehoods, critical omissions and exaggeration. That is one good reason that expensive ballot campaigns ($35 million in the case of the stem cell agency) are not necessarily the best way to fund scientific research.

As Knoepfler said,

“The key is balance….get excited and talk about the cool stem cell work (but) temper your statements a bit and keep plugging away at the research.”

Trounson and Torres and the Battle for Chair of the California Stem Cell Agency

The president of the California stem cell agency, Alan Trounson, may resign if the new chairman of the $3 billion research effort is not a person who has worked with the biomedical industry, Nature magazine reported today.

Trounson's position was disclosed publicly for the first time by writer Elie Dolgin in a profile of outgoing CIRM Chairman Robert Klein in the Dec. 2 edition of the internationally respected journal.

Trounson's preference could have an impact on the election of the chairman, which the CIRM board is expected to take up later this month. Art Torres, a former state legislator with little connection to industry, is one of the leading candidates, along with Alan Bernstein, head of HIV Global Vaccine Enterprise of New York, who is being backed heavily by Klein. The Trounson disclosure could also shape how the CIRM board receives the report Dec. 8 of the blue-ribbon panel that was chaired by Bernstein.

Dolgin wrote,

“Klein’s departure might also trigger the president to leave, thereby causing a complete overhaul of CIRM’s leadership. Trounson says he told Schwarzenegger that he would like that next chairperson to be 'somebody who’s in the delivery end of the spectrum — that is, somebody who has worked with the biotech or pharmaceutical industry.'
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“But as this issue was going to press, the leading internal candidate to replace Klein, many say, is vice-chair Art Torres, a former state senator and chairman of the California Democratic Party. Torres and Trounson reportedly cannot stand each other. Trounson notes that Torres is 'a politician, so he’s in that end of the spectrum.' Torres, for his part, declined to comment on his relationship with the president.”

Trounson's foray into board politics came in a multi-dimensional look at Klein and his role in Prop. 71 and as chairman of the agency. The piece included both praise for Klein along with some of his warts.

Here are some excerpts:

“He (Klein) leaves behind an agency with a long list of accomplishments, including more than US$1.15 billion in grants, six new facilities dotted across the state and close to 700 scientific papers.

“Yet many critics say that Klein and CIRM have failed to fully deliver. Despite promises that money borrowed from the state — at least $6 billion over ten years, when interest is factored in — would be returned through commercial spin-offs and savings to health care, the first marketable therapies have yet to materialize. Only two CIRM-funded projects have made it to early-stage clinical trials, and neither of these involves embryonic stem cells — the main impetus for launching the agency in the first place. The embryonic stem-cell clinical trials that have recently been approved in the United States are the product of privately funded research.

“Klein’s critics say his promotion of stem cells’ therapeutic promise was zealous and oversimplified. He 'left voters with the impression that people will be jumping out of their wheelchairs and not being diabetic within a year,' says John Simpson, a long-time observer and critic of the agency’s governance, who is at the consumer-advocacy group Consumer Watchdog based in Santa Monica, California. 'There’s been this constant compulsion for [Klein] to say, ‘See, we’re delivering, we’re delivering’, and that’s something that’s haunted him throughout the whole thing.'

“Throughout CIRM’s existence, Klein has pulled the strings, maintaining control over nearly every aspect of its structure and science, often to the chagrin of its other leaders. Still, many observers say that no one else could have weathered CIRM’s early storms. 'With Bob, there’s always this indefatigableness,' says Douglas Wick, a movie producer and diabetes advocate who worked with Klein to get CIRM funded. 'His personal energy and charisma are so strong, and he has this ability to get punched, stand up and go at it again.'”

Dolgin continued,

“But not all the early organizers of Proposition 71 remain enthusiastic about the way Klein led the charge. 'It became Bob’s show almost entirely, and there was some friction about that,' recalls Peter Van Etten, former JDRF president and chief executive. (Home developer Tom) Coleman (an early key organizer for Prop. 71) has not spoken to Klein since the initiative passed, following disagreements over what Coleman viewed as Klein’s self-promotional approach. (Movie director Jerry) Zucker (another influential early organizer of the Prop. 71 campaign) remains on better terms with Klein, but still feels some lingering resentment.

“'If I had to do it over again I’d make the same call to Bob Klein because I don’t think the rest of us would have got it done without him,' Zucker says. But, he adds, 'What I was most unhappy about was the realization after a while that [Klein] wrote the initiative for him to be the chairman. That was something I was too naive to realize. It’s shameless almost.'”

Dolgin also spoke with Joel Adelson, a health policy researcher at UC San Francisco, who co-authored a study of the agency earlier this year. Dolgin wrote,

“'Klein has in effect acted like the chief operating officer beside Trounson and beside (former CIRM President Zach) Hall, and I can only say that this looks like it must have been very uncomfortable for these guys,' Adelson says. 'It’s an unusual situation,' says Trounson. 'And if you ask me what I prefer,I prefer the simple situation where the president is in charge of all management and reporting to a board on policies. But it’s bifurcated, and it was set up that way, so you don’t have a choice.” (Hall declined to comment for this story.)”

Dolgin also quoted a CIRM board member on Klein.

“'He’s an historic figure with real genius in terms of moving biomedicine forward,' says Jeff Sheehy, a CIRM board member and director for communications at the University of California, San Francisco’s AIDS Research Institute. 'He’s as good as they get if not better.'”

Dolgin also noted that some criticism of Klein focused on CIRM's emphasis on clinical applications. However, a significant number of folks in the biotech industry believe the agency is overbalanced towards basic research.

Luring CIRM Bond Buyers: What Cost to the State?

What sort of interest rates will the California stem cell agency have to offer to privately sell taxable state bonds to fill its research coffers?

They could be a bit higher than the 5.5 percent or so that CIRM Chairman Robert Klein has discussed publicly.

That's because of the juicy rates provided to investors this week on tax-exempt California general obligation bonds.

Here is what Liam Denning wrote today in the "Heard on the Street" column in the Wall Street Journal.

"California's issue was priced for success, at an effective coupon of 6.1% on its 30-year bonds. For Californians, that equates to a taxable yield of more than 9% -- a spread of more than 550 basis points over equivalent Treasurys.

"Little wonder individual investors scooped up half the issuance, helped along by a high-profile advertising campaign. But the risk-reward balance was the main driver. California may be just a single-A credit, but in muni-land that still implies ultra-low default rates and a call over the state's considerable tax-raising powers. The prospect of tens of billions of federal stimulus dollars provides further comfort -- and probably precludes the need for more formal intervention.

"Somewhat perversely, the very prospect of higher taxes to refill state coffers makes munis more attractive to individuals, particularly the growing number of retirees burned by the stock market crash."

Of course, the private sale of the bonds is a different matter than the recent bond sale. But it is not all clear that potential purchasers of CIRM bonds would be willing to accept less than what was provided this week.

Higher interest rates are not a trivial matter for the state. CIRM is generally referred to as a $3 billion agency, which refers to its bonding and funding capacity. However, during the Prop. 71 campaign, estimates of the total cost, including interest, doubled that to $6 billion. That figure assumed the use of tax-exempt bonds. Using taxable bonds could add another $700 million to the $6 billion, according to one estimate.

None of the bonds that have been issued thus far for CIRM are tax-exempt. The whole issue of what was promised during the campaign and Bob Klein's statements on tax-exempt bonds led to something of a flap a few years ago involving allegations of deceit. You can read about it here.

Whatever the cost, CIRM does not appear to have much of a choice other than to privately market the bonds. The alternatives appear to be a shut-down or severely curtailing its operations.

Cashing in on California: Opportunities for Non-State Businesses

The California stem cell agency is offering another round of grants that is open to firms headquartered outside the state – a $20 million program aimed at developing tools and technology for stem cell research.

And this time, a non-California firm can submit up to four applications for grants.

The latest proposal comes as some in the California biotech industry and state lawmakers are attempting to compel CIRM to follow through on the Prop. 71 requirement to give preferential treatment to California businesses.

The grant program and the California supplier issue are operating on different tracks but both affect state businesses by either restricting or increasing competition from non-state firms.

First the new tools and tech proposal. It is open to both education and research institutions in California as well as businesses.

The key catch for businesses is that a research site must exist in California at the time the grant application is submitted, which may or may not be on application deadline July 10.

If CIRM holds to past practice, it will not check on whether the research site exists until after the grants are approved, in this case next December or even later. Nor does CIRM define what it means by research site. So there is plenty of time to pick up some likely property in California and prepare it for use.

The application does, however, require a short description of facilities in which the work will be done and the major equipment and resources available.

The grant proposal came up after CIRM was pressured in March to follow through on the Prop. 71 requirement to give preferential treatment to California firms.

Assemblyman Gene Mullin, D-San Mateo, is carrying a bill to define the term "California supplier" as it applies to CIRM. His legislation, AB 2381, has already passed the Assembly 75-0 and is now before the Senate Health Committee.

Under the push from legislators and industry, CIRM directors have moved ahead on their own regulatory definition of California supplier. It is more open than Mullin's proposed law to enterprises from out-of-state and declares that a California supplier is any that employs at least one-third of its employees, with a minimum of 100, in the state.

Or, a California supplier could also be one that "produces, builds, or manufactures a product or products in California for the specific product or products which are used by CIRM grantees."

At the CIRM directors meeting earlier this month, Duane Roth, one of the directors who helped draw up the language, said that the wording is intended to deal "with a product that's manufactured in California, but the headquarters of the company who owns them is not in California. That product would qualify as a, quote, California supplier, just that product, not the company, but the product."

Tony Lakavage of Beckman Dickinson, a global medical technology company with operations in San Jose, Ca., spoke on the supplier issue at the directors meeting. He said the firm has 1,500 employees in the state but 30,000 worldwide. He said that products made in California by his firm would apparently qualify for purchase but other global companies might have difficulty qualifying.

He urged a definition that relied on the economic impact of a company in California, according to the transcript of the meeting.

James Harrison, outside counsel to CIRM, presented the California supplier issue to the directors. Alan Trounson, who is in his fifth month as president of CIRM, told directors that neither he or the CIRM staff had seen the definition proposed by Harrison and that "there are issues we would have with this." CIRM Chairman Robert Klein apologized to Trounson for not bringing the matter to him.

CIRM directors indicated that more work needed to be done on the definition as it moves through the regulatory process.

While the application deadline for the tools and tech grants is July 10, potential applicants must file letters of intent by June 11. Otherwise, they will not be considered. Actual funding is scheduled for no sooner than March of next year.

The first round of grants open to out-of-state firms was a $25 million offering on new cell line proposals. Those grants are scheduled to be approved late in June.

CIRM Salaries Approved Along with Action on 'California Suppliers'

Here some of the highlights from today's meeting of the directors of the California stem cell agency, in addition to the appointment of Marie Csete as chief scientific officer.

They were provided by John M. Simpson, stem cell project director for the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, at our request. Simpson attended the session. Here is what he wrote.

"Despite (CIRM General Counsel) Tamar Pachter's recommendation, the board approved the proposed definition of a California supplier after John Valencia, an attorney for Invitrogen, made it clear that this would merely start a 45-day public comment process and the proposed regulation would be subject to change after that period taking comment into account. I was among those speaking in favor of passage.

"After lengthy discussion they adopted the Proposed Tools and Technical RFA with one substantial modification: Companies will be allowed to submit four applications like universities and research institutes. The staff recommendation would have limited companies to two applications.

"The Board also approved revised salary ranges as submitted. Top ranges were trimmed from what had been proposed at governance meeting.

"During public comment I noted that neither (CIRM Chairman Robert) Klein nor (Vice Chairman Ed) Penhoet take a salary and asked if approval of ranges for those positions indicates they intend to take a salary. He responded that after five years not doing so he may have to assess the situation and that it would be up to the board but that he 'knows of no such plans at this time.'"

We are querying Don Gibbons, chief communications officer for CIRM, specifically what salary ranges were approved.

Simpson also reported that there was little discussion of the biotech loan program and that a policy may be presented in June.

CIRM Bonds: 3.55 Percent vs. 5.168 Percent Interest

When Prop. 71 was passed, even well-informed voters believed that the new California stem cell agency would use $3 billion in NON-taxable bonds to finance its activities.

The issue is significant because it costs the state a great deal more to use taxable bonds, which were exactly what was used on Thursday.

The California Stem Cell Report asked the state treasurer's office for a comparable rate if the bonds had been tax-exempt. Spokesman Tom Dresslar replied that the rate would have been around 3.55 percent. That compares to the 5.168 percent rate that the bonds were sold at, a rather hefty boost.

The total interest cost for the $250 million in bonds is expected to be $31.941 million.

CIRM and the state treasurer's office are seeking an opinion from the IRS that they hope will allow CIRM to use non-taxable bonds, but it is not clear when that will be forthcoming.

If it can't use the cheaper financing, the state faces close to another $1 billion in interest costs, according to some estimates. That is beyond the $3 billion that non-taxable bonds were expected to cost. (Yes, the figure is nearly identical to the amount of bonds authorized under Prop. 71.)

The issues of the cost of CIRM bonds and what could be generously described as a lack of candor during the campaign on the part of California stem cell Chairman Robert Klein are currently backburner issues in the Capitol and California. But given the magnitude of the costs, they are likely to surface anew in the not-to-distant future.