Stem Cell Agency Unveils Bold New Vision for the Future

November 23, 2015

San Francisco, CA – CIRM, the state of California’s stem cell agency, is putting the final touches on its new Strategic Plan, a bold vision for what the agency hopes to achieve in the next five years, a vision significantly shaped by the input from stakeholders of all types and one that the public is now invited to read and comment on.

The Strategic Plan is due to go before the CIRM Science Subcommittee on Monday, November 30^th and the full Board for its approval on Thursday, December 17^th.

“The CIRM strategic planning process started months ago by asking you, our stakeholders, some tough questions, like, “what’s impeding progress” and “how do you think we could do better?”, says C. Randal Mills, PhD., President and CEO of CIRM. “Your input was invaluable in helping us chart an ambitious course and giving us the inspiration to be bold and think outside of the box. Now, as we get ready to put this new vision for the agency into action, we want to share it with the public, with patients and patient advocates, scientists and researchers, and give them a chance to let us know what they think.”

“As we enter what could be CIRM’s last phase, we want to show the people of California that we are doing everything we can to fulfill the hopes of all those who voted to create the agency when they supported Proposition 71 in 2004. That’s what this Strategic Plan demonstrates,” says Sherry Lansing, the cancer Patient Advocate member of the Board. “It’s an ambitious plan, but you never achieve anything worthwhile by playing it safe. Too many lives are at stake for us to do anything less than work as hard as we can, as long as we can, to achieve as much as we can.”

“Our mission at CIRM is to accelerate the development of stem cell therapies to patients with unmet medical needs. We have funding till 2020 and our new Strategic Plan shows we have a very clear vision of how we want to use those funds to achieve our goals,” says Jonathan Thomas, PhD, JD, Chair of the Board. “This Strategic Plan is the product of months of work. It began with us throwing out all our preconceived notions of what we do, and instead focused on what was possible with the time and money we have left. I think the result is something dramatically different than any Strategic Plan I have ever seen. Since you helped shape it we’d like to know what you think of it too.”

You can read the Strategic Plan here.

Send any comments by 5pm, Thursday, December 3^rd to Kevin McCormack, Senior Director for Public Communications and Patient Advocate Outreach: kmccormack@cirm.ca.gov

About CIRM

At CIRM, we never forget that we were created by the people of California to accelerate stem cell treatments to patients with unmet medical needs, and act with a sense of urgency to succeed in that mission.

To meet this challenge, our team of highly trained and experienced professionals actively partners with both academia and industry in a hands-on, entrepreneurial environment to fast track the development of today’s most promising stem cell technologies.

With $3 billion in funding and approximately 300 active stem cell programs in our portfolio, CIRM is the world’s largest institution dedicated to helping people by bringing the future of cellular medicine closer to reality.

For more information go to www.cirm.ca.gov