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Small companies working to develop human embryonic stem cell therapies face innumerable challenges when looking for funding, according to several industry executives at the second annual Stem Cell Meeting in San Francisco on Monday.
Unlike the traditional biotechnology sector, in which government agencies provide primary funding before early-stage venture capitalists move in to invest and assume risk, the lack of support from U.S. President George W. Bush's administration has led stem cell research to be viewed as too risky an investment, the executives said.
"I think that most VCs have so many opportunities that are at later stages than this," said Alan Lewis, president and CEO of Novocell, a San Diego-based stem cell engineering company focusing on diabetes research. "They seem to have lost their drive to invest in really innovative technologies."
Efforts to develop potentially life-saving therapies from human embryonic stem cell research have hit a number of roadblocks-namely, a ban on developing new stem cell lines with federal funds, and, until recent weeks, a series of lawsuits that kept the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine from selling the...