Stem Cell Agency Board Sticks with More Financial Disclosure

Posted: May 27, 2012 at 3:58 pm


The governing board of the $3 billion
California stem cell agency today rejected a proposal that would have
restricted transparency surrounding the financial interests of its
directors and top executives.

On a unanimous voice vote, the board
decided it would stick with the more complete disclosure rules that it
has operated under since 2005. CIRM staff had offered changes that would have narrowed the amount of economic
information that the board members and the executives would have been
required to disclose.
The directors' Governance Subcommittee, however, on May 3 rejected the plan. Sherry Lansing, a former
Hollywood film studio CEO and chair of the subcommittee, said at the time,

"I personally feel strongly that
because of CIRM's unique mission and the agency's incredibly
long-standing commitment to transparency, i believe that we should
continue to set an example by requiring the broadest disclosure for
members of the board and high level staff."

Retention of existing disclosure
rules comes at a time when more conflicts may arise. The agency is
moving to engage the biotech industry more closely as it pushes to
develop stem cell therapies. Already one case of conflict has arisen this
year dealing with industry. It involves a "special advisor"
to CIRM who was nominated to become director of a firm sharing in a
$14.5 million grant. She also was working for the firm. (See here and
here.)
The CIRM board also has built-in
conflicts of interest, written into the law by Proposition 71, which
created the agency. About 92 percent of the $1.3 billion awarded so
far has gone to institutions tied to members of the CIRM governing
board. Board members are not permitted, however, to vote on or
discuss grants to their institutions. But it is fair to say that if
California voters had foreseen that nearly all of the grants would
have gone to directors' institutions, they would not have
approved creation of the stem cell agency.
As the California Stem Cell Report remarked earlier, it is a good
move for CIRM to retain more transparency rather than less. As one of
the Moss Adams staffers said today – in a different context –
during the presentation of the first-ever performance audit of CIRM,

"When people have to fill a void
in information, they assume the worst."

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

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