Boldly de-risking development of impactful cell and gene therapies: the California Stem Cell Agency’s $3B funding model
Cell & Gene Therapy Insights 2020; 6(9), 1197–1205
10.18609/cgti.2020.13111
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is California’s Stem Cell funding agency [1]. Since its inception in 2004, CIRM has deployed $2.7B to advance development of stem-cell based regenerative medicine therapies for patients with unmet medical needs. This perspective highlights 3 elements of CIRM’s funding model that have enabled California academic researchers and companies to de-risk development of novel regenerative medicine therapies and attract biopharma industry support. To date, CIRM has funded over 1000 projects including 64 regenerative medicine clinical trials; over half the clinical trial projects have secured biopharma industry support. Overall, CIRM funding has enabled the launch of 44 companies and CIRM-funded projects have drawn in a cumulative $9B in industry investments.