Aggregated News
SACRAMENTO, Ca. -- California’s $12 billion stem cell and gene therapy program scored a historic first today, announcing that it had for the first time helped to finance a revolutionary treatment that will now be available to the general public.
It was a dramatic occasion for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the voter-created research enterprise financed by the state’s taxpayers. It came into being more than 21 years ago and has financed 118 clinical trials.
In 2004, however, the CIRM ballot initiative campaign generated voter expectations, that miraculous cures were right around the corner, a hope that was impossible to fulfill.
Announcement of the historic first came at the end of a daylong meeting here of the 35-member CIRM governing board. The weary directors were told by CIRM President Jonathan Thomas, also tired but clearly freshly energized, that he had a “very significant, hot-off-the-press” announcement to make: Rocket Pharmaceuticals had been cleared by federal regulators to put its LAD-1 treatment on the market.
Just last week, CIRM wrote about the therapy on its blog, The Stem...