Monitoring the Cash and IP at the California Stem Cell Agency

The $3 billion California stem cell agency appears unlikely to make any changes in who gets the cash from any commercial products that its research grants help finance despite recommendations from the Institute of Medicine(IOM).

The subject will come up next Wednesday during a meeting of the intellectual property subcommittee of the governing board of the stem cell agency. Intellectual property (IP) simply determines ownership rights and the share of any revenue from therapies that result from research.

CIRM staff has prepared a briefing paper with recommendations for next week's meeting, which has teleconference locations in La Jolla, Los Angeles, two in Irvine along with the main site in San Francisco.

The document summarized two key IOM recommendations in this fashion:

“Because CIRM is a new institution without a track record to reassure stakeholders, and because its finite funding timeline means as yet unknown agencies will be enforcing these policies years down the road, CIRM should “propose regulations that specify who will have the power and authority to assert and enforce in the future rights retained by the state” in CIRM IP, specifically referring to march-in rights, access plans and revenue sharing....

“Second, as other sources of funding become more prevalent, the agency should “reconsider whether its goal of developing cures would be better served by harmonizing CIRM’s IP policies wherever possible with the more familiar policies of the BayhDole Act.”

Here are the CIRM staff recommendations.

“CIRM staff has engaged in preliminary discussions several years ago with other agencies regarding future enforcement of CIRM’s regulations and agreements. Staff proposes to restart those discussions and return to the Subcommittee (or the Board) with a formal proposal to address future enforcement of CIRM’s IP regulations.”

“In light of the IOM’s own recognition that it may be premature to assess whether CIRM’s regulations will act as a deterrence to future investment, the fact that a number of CIRM’s regulations have been codified in statutes and CIRM’s positive progress in its industry engagement efforts to date, although quite early, CIRM staff proposes to continue to monitor this area and not to pursue any changes at this time.”

The director's subcommittee is unlikely to diverge significantly from the staff proposal, which was dated Feb. 14 but not posted on the CIRM website until Feb. 20.