It’s been almost ten years since the voters of California approved Proposition 71, creating the Stem Cell Agency and giving us $3 billion to fund stem cell research. So this is an appropriate time to look back and see what we have done with the money so far, the progress that’s been made, and where we are heading in the next ten years.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be taking a more detailed look at all these elements – it’s too much to cover in one blog – but let’s start with where we’re heading. At yesterday’s meeting of our governing Board, the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, President & CEO, C. Randal Mills, Ph.D. charted a course for future funding.

Randy Mills, Stem Cell Agency President & CEO

Right now it can take up to two years for a project going into clinical trials to apply for and get funding from us. As Randy said in a news release we issued after the meeting, “That’s just unacceptable”:

Under what he is calling CIRM 2.0, Randy is proposing to trim that down dramatically:

“We are going to shorten that to just 120 days. But we’re not just making it faster, we’re also making it easier for companies or institutions with a therapy that is ready to go into clinical trials to be able to get funding for their project when they need it. Under this new system they will be able to apply anytime, and not have to try and shoehorn their needs into our application process.”

The goal is not just to make it easier to apply for funding, but also to get more, high quality applications. Right now there is pressure on companies to apply before they are really ready because they know if they miss a current application deadline it could be another year to 18 months before another award cycle comes around. Under CIRM 2.0 application will be accepted on a monthly basis, so applicants won’t have to worry about missing one deadline – they can just apply the following month. Applying when they are ready will increase the likelihood that the projects will be and of high quality.

And as Randy points out, if it works at the clinical stage of funding, it can work at every stage:

“Speeding up the process, at all stages of research, just makes sense. The faster that researchers can get access to the funds they need to do their work, the faster they are likely to be able to produce something that helps patients.”

The speeding up of the process doesn’t just involve companies and researchers being able to apply anytime, it also means that when they do apply they’ll have to have all the supporting documentation and studies on hand to show they are ready to go as soon as the Board approves funding.

In the past there was often a delay of six months or even more after an application had been approved for funding while research milestones were negotiated and agreements signed. Because CIRM 2.0 will involve identifying milestones much earlier in the application process that delay will disappear.

This new approach involves a complete overhaul of the way we currently work but we think it’s worth it. We plan to start by introducing these changes for the projects that are furthest along, those ready to go into clinical trials, but in time we intend extending this to cover everything we fund.

Making these changes will help us trim a two-year process down to just three months. That means any therapy that proves successful is getting to the patients who need it much sooner than it otherwise would. And with many of the diseases we are targeting, saving time means saving lives.