Thursday, November 8, 2007
New Jersey Record
The governor and other top politicians vowed that stem cell research will flourish in New Jersey despite Tuesday’s stunning defeat of the state’s $450 million borrowing plan to fund the work.
Governor Corzine said he would continue to push for public funds to pay for stem cell research. He also talked of making a harder sell to private industries to fund the studies. “There’s still a favorable view about stem cell research” by the general public, Corzine said Wednesday at a news conference in Trenton.
“I do expect that we will be able to find additional dollars in the private sector for our research institutions,” he said. “I think we can go forward with that. We need to go out and make sure we get private resources.”
He said he was disappointed that New Jerseyans rejected the bond issue for stem cell research by a 53 percent to 47 percent margin. He had kicked in $150,000 of his own money to promote the stem cell bond issue.
The state is already heavily invested in stem cell research. Since 2003, the state Legislature has committed $270 million to building three stem cell research facilities, and $10 million in grants for researcher salaries. The state broke ground last month in New Brunswick for the $150 million Stem Cell Research Institute of New Jersey. Corzine said he expects another $20 million will be allocated from the state’s general operating budget to keep stem cell work going.
The governor will consider whether to put a stem cell bond question on the ballot next year.
“At some point in time, we’ll come back to voters [and ask for] a smaller amount of money, when state finances are in better shape,” said State Senate President Richard Codey D-Essex, the former governor and an ardent sponsor of stem cell legislation. The $450 million was largely to go to salaries for researchers, which suddenly makes the on-going recruitment of stem cell scientists a tricky one.
The Stem Cell Institute will be interviewing a potential permanent director for the facility today, said Dr. Joseph R. Bertino, interim director of the Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey.
“He’s an outstanding researcher from out of state,” he said. “It will be interesting to see how he reacts” to the stem cell bond defeat. “It won’t be as attractive a package for whoever we recruit to head the institute.”
He called Tuesday “a sad day for New Jersey.”
“Obviously, we’ll be looking for private funding, and we’ll be looking for the state Legislature to come up perhaps with a little more money and foundations and whatever,” Bertino said.
The state has held monthly workshops to get private industry interested in stem cell research, he said.
“There are several companies beginning to work with us,” said Bertino, a medical oncologist and professor at Robert Wood Johnson University Medical School. Biotechnical companies are “ready to pounce and commercialize” stem cell-related products, but they have to wait for academia to make the discoveries first, he said. The bond defeat should not discourage biotech companies from pursuing stem cell and other medical research in New Jersey, said Debbie Hart, president of BioNJ.
“Clearly, we’re disappointed. However, this does not negate the fact that a lot of stem cell research is going on in New Jersey, and there will continue to be,” Hart said. BioNJ, formerly called the New Jersey Biotechnology Council, is an independent trade association that represents about 250 biotech and pharmaceutical companies, including about 20 that do stem cell research.
Celgene Corp. of Summit, the largest biotech company in New Jersey, “has invested millions in the past five years” in stem cells, Hart said.
Biotech companies around the world continue to inquire about moving to New Jersey to conduct all types of medical research, “and we expect that growth to continue at a dramatic rate,” Hart said.
Codey said he was considering approaching pharmaceutical companies for stem cell research funding.
“They’re a natural to chip in” for research, in exchange for royalty rights on stem cell products, he said.
Assemblyman Neil M. Cohen, who wrote the bond ballot question and other stem cell legislation, was not quite so sanguine about the future.
New Jersey has been in a tight race with California, the only other state that has publicly-funded stem cell research. He worries the defeat could push companies West. “That money’s not going to be there, which means the brain power may go to California, which put $3 billion into stem cell research,” said Cohen, D-Union. “They’re going to go where the dollars are.”
The bond defeat could have a chilling effect on biomedical research corporations, he said.
“I think this sends out a bad message to the Fortune 500 companies that want to engage New Jersey,” he said. “They’re looking to go to a new Silicon Valley that deals with stem cell research, and New Jersey will lose that opportunity, and patients will lose.”
New Jersey Record
Bob Groves & John Reitmeyer
To view PDF Files, you must have Acrobat Reader.