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Heart-wrenching TV ads featuring people afflicted with incurable diseases filled the airwaves last fall, touting the potential of stem cell research.

If taxpayers agreed to fund $3 billion of research and it resulted in a treatment for just one of the most common incurable diseases, Californians were told, the savings to the state health care system would more than cover the cost.

On top of that, the ad campaign suggested Californians might get discounts on new therapies and the state might get a cut of the profits from any new drugs.

Those pitches were part of a drive that helped persuade a majority of California voters to pass Proposition 71, a plan to fund stem cell research by establishing the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

But that money is unlikely to materialize, at least any time soon, according to those now charged with the task of creating policy for the institute.

Simply put, any new therapies are years, if not decades, away. Anti-trust laws prohibit Californians from receiving a unique price break on drugs that could result from stem cell...