Print“This report demonstrates that we’ve delivered on the economic promise today, even as we continue to see strong positive milestones on the research side progressing rapidly toward therapies.”
California’s $3 billion investment in stem cell science is creating thousands of new jobs and millions of dollars in new tax revenue, says an independent study of its impact. The outside validation is good news for California’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which last year contended with criticism over an alleged lack of transparency and conflicts of interest in the way it has allocated more than $1 billion in grants.
Bang for the buck has become an important issue in the California, where high unemployment, flagging tax revenue, and a $25 billion budget deficit have led the state to consider cutting even the most basic public healthcare spending.
The state bond-backed stem cell agency was created by voters in 2004 during better economic times, putting it in a good position to contribute to California’s well-being as it spends the roughly $2 billion remaining in its coffers. So far, the agency has created 25,000 jobs and more than $200 million in new tax revenue, says the report.
Robert Klein, chairman of the agency’s governing board, says that when voters approved institute’s creation they expected it to deliver hope for people suffering from a range of serious health conditions and deliver an economic boost for the state.
“This report demonstrates that we’ve delivered on the economic promise today, even as we continue to see strong positive milestones on the research side progressing rapidly toward therapies,” says Klein.
In particular, the agency’s work has drawn leading companies to locate or expand their operations in California specifically because of the agency’s funding and the intellectual capital it has helped create, says the agency’s president, Alan Trounson.
The study looked at the one-time economic impact of the $1.1 billion in grant awards the agency had committed by July 2010 for the life of those awards, which are expected to be nearly fully expended by the end of 2014. It also included the $844 million in leveraged funds from donors and institutions that contributed to the 12 major research facilities the agency funded. It did not consider the impact of grants made in late 2010.
The agency will eventually conduct a second impact study that will look at the economic impact the agency’s work has had on trimming healthcare costs for California employers and the state’s MediCal program. Given the early-stage of much of the research the institute is funding, it may be some time before such effects can be seen and measured.
January 28, 2011
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-stem_cells_for_cash_jobs.html
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