Sen. Sheila Kuehl

Center for Genetics and Society says California agency must provide for affordable treatments and returns to the state

The Center for Genetics and Society, a public interest group, today welcomed the introduction of a bipartisan bill to the California Legislature to ensure that the state receives a share of profits, as well as discounted prices to any treatments, from publicly funded stem cell research.

“If a biotech company is making billions of dollars of profit from state-financed research, the people should receive a fair return on their investment, as well as access to any therapies,” said Jesse Reynolds, a policy analyst at the Center.

Senate Bill 771, introduced yesterday by Senators Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) and George Runner (R-Antelope Valley), specifies that minimum percentages of revenue from the licensing of products developed with grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) be returned to the state. It also requires that such products be offered at discounted prices to the state’s publicly funded health care programs.

"The stem cell institute has said it looks forward to working with the Legislature, but in the past its leadership has been combative,” Reynolds said. “Let’s hope they have a new attitude.”

Deborah Ortiz, a former Senator and a vocal proponent of Proposition 71, introduced similar bills in recent legislative sessions, but the CIRM leadership strongly fought these efforts.

“The Proposition 71 campaign sponsored and advertised an economic report claiming the state would receive up to a billion dollars from sharing revenue,” Reynolds continued. “But after it was approved, the leadership of the stem cell institute that it established tried to back out. This would have been a billion-dollar bait and switch. The bill will make significant steps toward fulfilling these promises.”

The Center for Genetics and Society is a public interest organization advocating responsible use and effective societal governance of the new human biotechnologies. It supports human embryonic stem cell research and public funding for it, but has raised concerns about the conduct, oversight, and implications of stem cell research. CGS has been a prominent critic of the $3-billion California stem cell research program.  For more information, see our website at www.genetics-and-society.org and our blog, Biopolitical Times, at www.biopoliticaltimes.org.