Proposition 71 established a closed doors grant approval process, in which the CIRM doles out hundreds of millions of borrowed taxpayers dollars to private industry and public entities to conduct human cloning and embryonic stem cell (and related) research. All has not gone well so far, with key personnel resigning, and now $3 million in grants having to be taken back. From the Wired report:
SAN DIEGO — The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine is having more trouble than it may have expected giving away millions of dollars to stem-cell researchers.
One grant application was withdrawn by the applicant, and one grant was rescinded by the agency, after investigations turned up information that made CIRM directors reconsider handing over more than $3 million. Critics say the agency’s secretive grant-approval process is at fault, and that a more open process would have found problems with the grant candidates sooner. But better late than never: They also say the results of the administrative reviews raise confidence in the agency’s integrity...
One grant recipient, CHA Regenerative Medicine Institute of Los Angeles, turned down a $2.6 million grant following a lengthy administrative review by the stem-cell agency, said Arlene Chiu, CIRM’s chief scientific officer, at a Wednesday meeting in San Diego. The grant had been awarded in March, but a lawsuit and accusations of plagiarism involving the head of CHA’s parent company soon raised questions about how worthy the recipient really was...
Another grant approved by CIRM directors in spring 2007 was rejected during the administrative review the agency conducts on all approved grants before sending out any checks, Chiu said. The principal investigator on the $638,000 grant, David Smotrich, did not meet the necessary criteria of being an on-site, full-time employee of the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, California.
CIRM directors had approved the grants after a controversial closed-door review failed to turn up the controversy surrounding Cha.
Following disclosure of the CHA controversy by Wired News and other media outlets, critics including Simpson criticized CIRM’s secretive grant-award process.
Mark my words, we will see more of this as time progresses. The biotech industry today reminds me of the wildcatters during the early oil industry days. Now, as then, there is going to be a mad scramble to strike it rich. People will be digging metaphoric wells all over the place. There will be fast operators and even faster talkers. Most ventures will fail, but a few will become billionaires. In such an atmosphere, watch your wallets!
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