James Harrison

CIRM & NIH: a dynamic duo to advance stem cell therapies

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment
NIH

National Institutes of Health

There’s nothing more flattering than to get an invitation, out of the blue, from someone you respect, and be told that they are interested in learning about the way you work, to see if it can help them improve the way they work.

That’s what happened to CIRM recently. I will let Randy Mills, who was our President & CEO at the time, pick up the story:

“Several weeks ago I got a call from the head of the National Heart. Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) asking would we be willing to come out to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and talk about what we have been doing, the changes we have made and the impact they are having.”

Apparently people at the NIH had been reading our Strategic Plan and our Annual Report and had been hearing good things about us from many different individuals and organizations. We also heard that they had been motivated to engage more fully with the regenerative medicine community following the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act.

We were expecting a sit down chat with them but we got a lot more than that. They blocked out one and a half days for us so that we had the time to engage in some in-depth, thoughtful conversations about how to advance the field.

collins-portrait_1

Dr. Francis Collins, NIH Director

The meeting was kicked off by both Francis Collins, the NIH Director, and Gary Gibbons, the NHLBI Director. Then the CIRM team – Dr. Mills, Dr. Maria Millan, Gabe Thompson and James Harrison – gave a series of presentations providing an overview of how CIRM operates, including our vision and strategic priorities, our current portfolio, the lessons learned so far, our plans for the future and the challenges we face.

The audience included the various heads and representatives from the various NIH Institutes who posed a series of questions for us to answer, such as:

  • What criteria do we use to determine if a project is ready for a clinical trial?
  • How do we measure success?
  • How have our strategies and priorities changed under CIRM 2.0?
  • How well are those strategies working?

The conversation went so well that the one day of planned meetings were expanded to two. Maria Millan, now our interim President & CEO, gave an enthusiastic summary of the talks

“The meetings were extremely productive!  After meeting with Dr. Collins’ group and the broader institute, we had additional sit down meetings.   The NIH representatives reported that they received such enthusiastic responses from Institute heads that they extended the meeting into a second day. We met with with the National Institutes of Dental and Craniofacial Research, Heart, Lung and Blood, Eye Institute, Institute on Aging, Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, Diabetes, and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.  We covered strategic and operational considerations for funding the best science in the stem cell and regenerative medicine space.  We explored potential avenues to join forces and leverage the assets and programs of both organizations, to accelerate the development of regenerative medicine and stem cell treatments.”

This was just a first meeting but it laid the groundwork for what we hope will be a truly productive partnership. In fact, shortly after returning from Washington, D.C., CIRM was immediately invited to follow-up NIH workgroups and meetings.

As this budding partnership progresses we’ll let you know how it’s working out.

Emotions and gratitude at changing of the guard at Stem Cell Agency

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment
RandyFarewellFamily

Randy Mills and his family

Randy, as regular readers of this blog know, is, or rather was, the President and CEO of CIRM. James Harrison is less well known to the outside world but his imprint on CIRM, as our General Counsel and one of the key figures behind Proposition 71, is even bigger than that of Randy’s.

Randy came to the stem cell agency a little over three years ago and in pretty quick order completely refashioned us. Under his guidance CIRM 2.0 became a sleek, streamlined funding machine, turning what had been an almost two-year process from application to funding into one that took just 120 days. He revamped the frequency with which we offered specific programs, making it more predictable and so easier for researchers to know when the next round was coming up. He helped usher in a new Strategic Plan that is a blueprint for us until 2020.

But the changes he implemented were not just about the way we worked, it was also about how we worked and particularly how we worked together. He turned the agency into a true team, one where everyone felt they not only had a role to play but that what they did was important in determining the success of the agency.

Not surprisingly there was no shortage of people ready to praise him. CIRM Board Chair Jonathan Thomas (JT) thanked Randy for turning the agency around, transforming it into an organization that even the National Institutes of Health (NIH) now looks to as a model (more on that in a subsequent blog). Vice Chair Art Torres thanked Randy for his leadership and for his compassion toward patients, always putting them first in everything that he and the agency did. Board member Sherry Lansing called Randy “a genius and visionary”.

But perhaps the most moving tributes came from patients advocates.

Don Reed said; “When I first met Randy I didn’t like him. I thought CIRM was one of the best, if not the best, organization out there and who was this person to say they were going to come in and make it better. Well, you did Randy and we are all so very grateful to you for that.”

Adrienne Shapiro from Axis Advocacy, an organization dedicated to finding a cure for sickle cell disease, presented Randy with the “Heart of a Mother” award, thanking him for his tireless support of patients and their families.

Jake Javier, a participant in the Asterias spinal cord injury trial, wrote a note saying: “You positively affect so many through your amazing funding efforts for life changing research, and should be very proud of that. But something I will always remember is how personal and genuine you were while doing it. I hope you got the chance to meet as many of the people you helped as possible because I know they would remember the same.”

Randy – who is leaving to become President/CEO of the National Marrow Donor/Be The Match program – was clearly deeply moved by the tributes, but reminded everyone that he was leaving us in good hands. The Board named Dr. Maria Millan as the interim President and CEO, pending a meeting of a search committee to determine the steps for appointing a permanent replacement.

Randy praised Maria for her intelligence, compassion and vision:

“Maria Millan has been a great partner in all that we have achieved at CIRM. She was a key part of developing the Strategic Plan; she  understands it inside out and has been responsible for administering it. She is a wonderful leader and is going to be absolutely phenomenal.”

JamesFarewell_1920x1080

James Harrison (left) with CIRM Board members Jonathan Thomas and Bert Lubin

The tributes for James Harrison were ever bit as moving. James has been a part of CIRM since before there was a CIRM. He helped draft Proposition 71, the ballot initiative that created the stem cell agency, and has played a key role since as General Counsel.

JT: “James has been a part of literally every decision and move that CIRM has made in its entire history. He’s been integral in everything. When I first came to CIRM, I was told by Bob Klein (JT’s predecessor as Chair) ‘Don’t brush your teeth without checking with James first’ suggesting a level of knowledge and expertise that was admirable.”

Jeff Sheehy “We would not be here without James. He organized the defense when we were sued by our opponents in the early days, through the various leadership challenges we had, all of the legal difficulties we had James was there to guide us and it’s been nothing short of extraordinary. Your brilliance and steadiness is amazing. While we are screaming and pulling our hair out there was James. Just saying his name makes me feel more relaxed.”

Sherry Lansing: “One thing I never worried about was our ethics, because you protected us at all times. You have such strong ethical values, you are always calm and rational and no matter what was going on you were always the rock who could explain things to everyone and deal with it with integrity.”

James is leaving to take a more active role in the law firm Remcho, Johansen & Purcell, where he is partner. Succeeding him as General Counsel is Scott Tocher, who has been at CIRM almost as long as James.

Randy; “To have someone like Scott come in and replace someone who wrote Proposition 71 speaks for the bench strength of the agency and how we are in very good hands.”

Art Torres joked “Scott has been waiting as long as Prince Charles has to take over the reins and we’re delighted to be able to work with him.”

We wish Randy and James great good luck in their next adventures.