Monday, March 10, 2008

Biotech Loan Plan Now Available to Public

The California stem cell agency today posted its draft policy for its biotech loan program, which could total as much as $750 million, a little more than 24 hours before it is scheduled to receive its first public hearing.

The document, which we are still reviewing, can be found here. The proposal will be discussed Tuesday at a 4 p.m. meeting of the Biotech Loan Task Force in Sacramento with remote locations in San Carlos in the San Francisco Bay Area and Pleasanton.

The policy will go to the full CIRM board of directors on Wednesday morning.

We have written repeatedly about CIRM's failure to keep the public informed in a timely fashion about its proposed policies and initiatives. This latest example is one of the most egregious, given the far-reaching nature of the plan. One would think that someone on the board of directors would point out this level of performance is not acceptable in either the public or private sector.

It is a management failure, one that rests with Robert Klein, chairman of CIRM, and Alan Trounson, president of CIRM.

That said, we have to give the agency some credit for posting many of the documents for the Wednesday meeting with something close to sufficient notice. But posting and preparing these documents should be routine tasks. When an organization struggles with routine tasks, it means it does not have time or capability to respond well to exception events or crises.

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