Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — What’s in a name?
Perhaps tens of millions of dollars worth of contributions to the California’s cash-strapped stem cell agency if its board adopts a proposal to swap naming rights to research programs and office space in exchange for sizable donations.
High-ranking officials at the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine hope to raise donations from deep-pocketed donors eager to attach their names to conference rooms, grants and whatever else related to stem cell research that can handle an outside name.
One scheme floated is to name “fellowship” programs after donors who contribute at least $10 million each.
“No naming will be considered without a gift of substantial value,” the proposed policy states.
Officials compare the plan to public universities naming buildings, professorships and other school-related programs and property after donors. Others see it more akin to municipalities selling naming rights to stadiums to corporations.
Whatever the analogy, there’s little precedent for a California agency raising money in this way, and the plan has raised concern among the stem cell agency’s critics.
“If they aren’t careful, they are going to be seen as selling out to biotech,” said John Simpson of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.
The proposal, which was approved unanimously late Thursday with little debate by a subcommittee of the board that oversees the agency, would allow corporations to get in on the deal so long as less than 5 percent of the participating company’s annual budget is dedicated to stem cell research.
The full 29-member board is expected to adopt the scheme at its April 6 meeting in Los Angeles.
The plan would also bar donors from applying to the agency for grants — a provision backers say would eliminate conflicts of interest.
But Jesse Reynolds, a longtime agency critic at the Center for Genetics and Society in Oakland, said even a grants ban wouldn’t completely guard against conflicts.
He said big donors could still influence how grants are awarded, perhaps pressuring research directed at diseases afflicting family members.
“The potential for conflicts is there,” Reynolds said.
Proposition 71, which 59 percent of the electorate voted for in November 2004 and created the stem cell agency, explicitly allows the agency to accept outside contributions.
Sound technology pioneer Ray Dolby and his wife have already contributed $5 million, which agency officials have used to hire staff and pay office bills because lawsuits have cut off its main funding source.
Proposition 71 authorized the agency to borrow $3 billion to fund about $300 million in stem cell grants annually for 10 years.
But two lawsuits filed last summer by lawyers with connections to religious organizations that oppose stem cell research are challenging the agency’s legality and its right to borrow the $3 billion, which will cost taxpayers $6 billion in principal and interest if paid back over 30 years.
Until that litigation is resolved, the agency is barred from borrowing money, which prevents it from funding grants.
A superior court judge in Hayward is expected to soon rule on the lawsuits after a one-week, non-jury trial concluded March 15. Even if the judge rules in the agency’s favor, the agency won’t be able to borrow money until the expected appeals are exhausted sometime next year.
Robert Klein, chairman of the board that oversees the board, said he has secured $50 million in loans from philanthropic organizations and wealthy donors that will be paid back once the agency is able to sell its $3 billion in bonds to Wall Street. Klein, who has declined to identify the donors, said the loans could be converted into contributions and agency programs named after the donors.
The actual stem cell agency’s property holdings aren’t much. Its headquarters are housed in a business office above a pizzeria and bookstore across the street from AT&T Park in San Francisco.
“We don’t have a lot of real things,” said Walter Barnes, the agency’s chief administrative officer. “We do have conference rooms and things like that.”
Instead, it’s expected that most of the naming rights will go to grants, fellowships and other such programs. Barnes said he would prepare a type of “price list” detailing what different levels of contributions can buy.
Barnes said that potential donors have contacted the institute asking how they can contribute as little as $50 and as much as their entire estates.
“Bequests are one thing that we have gotten inquires on,” Barnes said.
