Stem cell profit rules urged
By Sacramento Bee,
Sacramento Bee
| 01. 24. 2006
Biotech companies that commercialize taxpayer-funded stem cell research would have to plan to sell the drugs at the "lowest available U.S. commercial price" to low-income Californians, a task force recommended Monday to a citizens group that oversees the state's $3 billion stem cell program.
During a four-hour session at Stanford University, the group also recommended that research grant recipients return 25 percent of income they receive from commercially licensing their stem cell breakthroughs to the state's general fund.
In still another break from federal policy that typically governs such "intellectual property" transactions, members suggested that researchers generally seek nonexclusive licenses for their inventions to provide the maximum potential for fast commercial breakthroughs. Typically, private companies seek exclusive rights to develop a product generated from public research funds.
"Three different companies might pursue that technology three different ways," said Dr. Francisco Prieto, a diabetes specialist at Sutter Medical Group in Elk Grove and task force member who supported the idea.
Monday's recommendations could prove a key turning point in a contentious debate over how Californians and the public treasury will benefit...
Related Articles
By Ian Sample, The Guardian | 03.08.2024
Scientists are a step closer to making IVF eggs from patients’ skin cells after adapting the procedure that created Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, more than two decades ago.
The work raises the prospect of older women being...
By Ramon Antonio Vargas, The Guardian | 02.28.2024
Doctors say a man in California who contracted blood cancer while living with HIV is in remission from both potentially fatal illnesses thanks to a treatment they are hailing as remarkable and encouraging.
Paul Edmonds is only the fifth-known person...
By Victoria Gray, Uduak Thomas, and Kevin Davies, The CRISPR Journal | 02.14.2024
In July 2019, medical staff in Nashville dosed the first U.S. patient in the exa-cel therapy trial, sponsored by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics. That first patient was Victoria Gray, a mother of four from Forest, Mississippi, a sickle cell...
By Adam Zewe, MIT News | 02.07.2024
A tiny device built by scientists at MIT and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology could be used to improve the safety and effectiveness of cell therapy treatments for patients suffering from spinal cord injuries.
In cell therapy, clinicians...