Aggregated News
The headline on the cover of the San Francisco Business Times told it all.
“Running on Empty: What do you do when 25 years and a billion dollars have not produced an approved drug?”
It was a clear illustration of the enormously expensive task and challenges involved in developing cutting-edge therapies -- an illustration that applies as well to the $12 billion California stem cell and gene therapy program. It too has yet to finance an approved stem cell or gene therapy treatment during its 18 years of work and the expenditure of $3.5 billion from California taxpayers.
Two of the three examples cited in the San Francisco Business Times article by veteran biotech reporter Ron Leuty involve companies that CIRM has supported: Geron, Inc., of Foster City, Ca., and Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc., of Brisbane, Ca. CIRM loaned Geron $25 million in 2011. Sangamo has received $7.9 million.
Over the years, Geron has enjoyed major media attention but not recently. It was the first company to win approval for a clinical trial for a treatment using human embryonic...