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CIRM leaders outline reprioritized strategic plan, DEI measures, and patient-assistance pilot
Summary
CIRM President Jonathan Thomas told the oversight committee that the agency has reprioritized deployment of remaining Prop 14 funds around six strategic goals, is piloting a patient-assistance program from licensing revenues, and embeds DEI criteria in grant review and clinical trial patient recruitment.
Jonathan Thomas, president and CEO of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), presented a comprehensive update to the Citizens Financial Accountability Oversight Committee on Dec. 18, detailing a reprioritized Strategic Allocation Framework (SAF) for the agencythat guides how roughly $3.8 billion in remaining Prop 14 funds will be deployed.
Thomas said the SAF is data-driven and lists six priority areas: increased support for basic research, tools and enabling technologies (for example gene editing), advancing a set number of rare-disease programs to biologics license application (BLA) readiness, funding 1520to2020 later-stage programs for more prevalent conditions, improving accessibility and affordability (including a dedicated Accessibility and Affordability Working Group created by Prop 14), and workforce development. He described the framework as a "material amendment" to the strategic plan that will be implemented through concept plans, program announcements, and requests for applications over the coming year.
On equity and access, Thomas and CIRM staff said DEI is integrated into grant review: clinical trial applications must include plans for representative patient enrollment, and peer reviewers (including patient advocates) score DEI as part of the evaluation. CIRM has established an Accessibility and Affordability Working Group with a separate budget and FTE cap under Prop 14.
Thomas also described the licensing and revenue fund and a new patient-assistance program intended to help California residents participate in trials (travel, lodging, food). CIRM reported an initial deposit of about $15.6 million from a transaction related to a funded project; that fund currently supports a pilot, and staff have contracted with a third-party administrator to manage patient-assistance services. CIRM said expenditures will ramp as the program moves from pilot to full operation and as revenues from funded programs develop.
Other topics covered included CIRMs AlphaClinics network that supports clinical trials across multiple institutions, plans for community care centers of excellence to expand trial access to underserved regions, the iPSC repository size and diversity goals, and operational improvements (governance restructuring, improved IP disclosure follow-up, new data dashboards, CRM selection, HR onboarding reductions, and cybersecurity policy work). Committee members asked for additional qualitative reporting on patient assistance outcomes and for more details about inter-state partnerships and use of loans vs. grants.
The presentation concluded with the agency's timeline for concept-plan approvals and upcoming RFAs that will implement the SAF; committee members praised the audit result and the plan and raised follow-up requests for reporting and transparency.
