'Less Than a Drop in the Bucket' -- Dueling Perspectives on California's First Stem Cell Royalty Check
By David Jensen,
California Stem Cell Report [cites CGS' Marcy Darnovsky]
| 02. 14. 2018
California is counting its first royalties from a 13-year-old effort to develop stem cell cures and has declared that it hopes that the check will be the first in a flood of payments.
Others, however, warn of the dangers of over-excitement about the $190,345.87 payment from the City of Hope, saying that it is "less than a drop in the bucket" compared to the cost of the $3 billion California Institute for Regenerative Medicine or CIRM, as the state stem cell agency is formally known.
Here is a longer look at the two perspectives in the wake of Monday's loyalty report.
The royalties were generated from a $5.2 million award in 2012 to the City of Hope for research involving a potential therapy for glioblastoma, one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer and the type afflicting U.S. Sen. John McCain.
"A little piece of history" is how Kevin McCormack, senior director for communications for the stem cell agency, described the royalty in an email. He also wrote on the agency's blog,
"It’s the first of what...
Related Articles
By Katie LaGrone, WPTV | 06.28.2024
Image by National Cancer Institute from Unsplash
TAMPA, Fla. — A Tampa jury recently found the now-defunct Lung Institute in Tampa guilty of engaging in “deceptive or unfair practices” while it offered customers “valueless” stem cell therapy to treat incurable...
By Peter Aldhous, Scientific American | 07.02.2024
In June a notice posted on the website of the journal Nature set a new scientific record. It withdrew what is now the most highly cited research paper ever to be retracted.
The study, published in 2002 by Catherine Verfaillie...
By Robert F. Service, Science | 07.04.2024
Image by Ed Uthman from Flickr
Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two gene therapy procedures that can treat and, in some cases essentially cure sickle cell disease, a genetic blood disorder that causes pain and...
By David Jensen [cites CGS' Pete Shanks], The California Stem Cell Report | 06.24.2024
Image by NIH Image Gallery from Flickr
The Biopolitical Times reported this month that the California stem cell and gene therapy program “seems to be in serious trouble.”
“On first glance, it may look impressive, with over a thousand patients...