State must protect investment in stem cell research

The Capital Times/Opinion, Madison, WI

As a Wisconsin taxpayer I am grateful and proud of Dr. James Thomson and UW-Madison’s bioscience community for their human embryonic stem cell (hESC) discovers. But as I study the funding issues relating to Wisconsin’s stem cell enterprise I have become increasingly concerned with how our state is managing the intellectual property associated with these potential lucrative discoveries.

One of my questions has to do with why Wisconsin agreed to give exclusive rights to the Geron Corp. in Menlo Park, Calif., for using Wisconsin-patented stem cells to treat heart, diabetes and neurological disorders? My concerns have to do with both the nature of the diseases chosen and the potential economic and health care implications involved.

I am also concerned with the potential conflict of interest involved and exactly by who and why this decision was made and whose interests are best being served?

After all, the potential financial returns to the state of Wisconsin in terms of future health care costs are enormous, not to mention who it is who will ultimately control and most benefit from any cell-based cures in these three major disease areas.

As users of heart drugs and other therapies, I and many other Wisconsin citizens are very dependent upon medications. As both a taxpayer and patient I am concerned about how Wisconsin-funded cell-based discoveries are being managed. Are they being managed in a way that can best ensure Wisconsin families more effective and affordable heart disease, diabetes and neurological care?

Or, will my grandchildren also have to travel to Minnesota for their heart medications? Will nearly half of Wisconsin citizens still have to go without full access to medications and more affordable health care in 2020?

I urge all Wisconsin citizens, but especially those who are working for health care reform here, to begin to connect the dots between our basic biomedical research and development decisions and our existing health care crisis before it is too late.

The central question is: how can we move from our state funding policy of providing a blank check to biotech and pharmaceutical companies and scientists/entrepreneurs to routinely attaching health care payback safeguard to all our innovation grants and other tax incentives?

Perhaps the place to begin is with better and more accurate information about who really is paying for this research. We can begin by eliminating two major myths: that university funding for science discoveries is generally paid for by the private sector, and that public revenue sharing would discourage scientific research.

Wisconsin citizens need to consider who owns the university, who really pays for the laboratories, equipment, supplies, the buildings, utilities and the salaries of scientists and staff who work there? Who supports and sustains the gigantic and robust interdisciplinary and collaborative resources deposited there? It is the taxpayers, the students and alumni (you and me) who support and sustain this marvelous and successful research enterprise.

Ultimately Wisconsin taxpayers’ ability to deal with the above concerns successfully will depend in large part on how we as a statewide community make these value-based decisions in the full light of public scrutiny. Presently these decisions are being made in board rooms and by CEOs sitting on university-based patent-making non-profit foundations. What are called for at this juncture are less government and media assurances and much more public discussion based on much better information and transparency.