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Monitoring the Cash and IP at the California Stem Cell Agency

Posted: February 24, 2013 at 2:53 am

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.   

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/xvosTob7Zo0/monitoring-cash-and-ip-at-california.html

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