Life-science plan rooted in other bids - $1b initiative recycled ideas of university, biotech leaders

BYLINE: Stephen Heuser Globe Staff - Globe staff writers Frank Phillips and Gideon Gill contributed to this report.

The $1 billion life-science funding proposal Governor Deval L. Patrick unveiled this week was pulled together from a broad array of proposals that have been floated by the biotech industry and university leaders, some for a matter of years.

The final plan was crafted quickly in the past month to make a splash at this week's BIO International Convention, where Patrick on Tuesday drew a throng and applause in the midst of the busy Boston convention center. Some of his ideas are novelties, such as "gap funding" for scientists who narrowly miss out on federal grant money. But many have deep roots in proposals circulated by college administrators and business lobbyists looking for a funding boost, according to numerous interviews with people involved in the process.

Half of the $1 billion in spending Patrick proposes would come from bonds issued to pay for new facilities and equipment for biotech research. The rest would come out of the state's budget, either as direct spending on research and job training, or as tax credits for biotech companies doing business in Massachusetts.

So far the proposal has few specifics, and its final shape depends on legislation that has not yet been written. But a couple of clear winners are apparent. One is the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, which could receive more than $100 million to build a facility that would house a stem-cell bank and labs to explore other cutting-edge biology.

Another beneficiary of the proposal is Harvard University, which would shed the cost and expense of running its own informal bank of stem cells created in its labs. Currently, when scientists elsewhere want to work on Harvard-derived stem-cell lines, the university has to handle the complex documentation requirements and ship the delicate cells.

"The time and effort needed to make these available is not insignificant," said Kevin Casey, Harvard's senior director of government relations.

A statewide committee convened by the Legislature after passage of the 2005 stem-cell bill, which includes Casey and others, has been discussing the possibility of a statewide stem-cell bank for some time, he said, and shared the idea with Patrick administration this spring.

In searching for a possible home for the stem-cell bank, the governor turned to a suggestion made by UMass leaders last fall. Spend $66 million to build stem-cell research capacity at UMass campuses. Although the university's original proposal didn't specifically include a stem-cell bank, the school suggested it could be placed at the center of a burgeoning, if controversial, field of science.

UMass president Jack M. Wilson said his conversations with the governor about a stem-cell facility began during Patrick's campaign, when Wilson hosted each of the gubernatorial candidates for lunch at the UMass Club in Boston to talk about the university's role in advancing science locally. After Patrick's election, he met the governor-elect for dinner downtown to talk further.

"The governor was up to speed almost from day one," Wilson said.

In addition, the university is hoping for another $38 million to build a research facility to explore RNA interference, or RNAi, a newly discovered biology tool that can shut off the function of individual genes inside a cell. The plan would capitalize on the high profile and charisma of UMass researcher Craig Mello, who shared the Nobel Prize in medicine last year for his discovery of RNAi.

Though much of the $1 billion would be directed toward university buildings and academic research, one-quarter of the money would come in a form tailored to the industry: a quarter-billion dollars in tax credits over 10 years. The idea of boosting tax credits for biotech companies has long been pushed by the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, the industry's chief state lobby. A former aide to Governor Mitt Romney said that former biotechnology council president Thomas M. Finneran and aides pitched tax credits as a way to support biotech "multiple times over the past 3 or 4 years."

There appear to be some key differences, however, between the new plan and the longstanding biotechnology lobby proposals. Patrick aides yesterday said the tax credits would likely focus specifically on companies planning to create new jobs. That could set up a conflict with local biotech companies, most of which lose money and aren't eligible for tax credits. They would prefer a new system to allow them to sell their potential credits to other companies that do pay taxes and want a discount.

The Patrick administration began to work on a broad-ranging life-science plan in January, according to aides. The governor appointed his deputy chief of staff, David Simas, to assemble a team to decide where the state's money should be spent. Another key player was David Morales, policy adviser to then-Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, who worked on possible stem-cell proposals under Travaglini and joined the Patrick administration in March.

As the plan took shape, the administration sought advice from numerous biotech and academic leaders around the state. Patrick appeared at a March 30 meeting of the newly formed Massachusetts Life Science Collaborative to say he wanted to remove Romney's restrictions on stem-cell research in the state, and would look for ways to finance the work.

By April, the ideas began to come together under an umbrella plan. In a series of meetings, secretary of housing and economic development Daniel O'Connell and Patrick aides sought input from local life-science leaders, including those from nonprofits - such as Boston teaching hospitals - and large corporations.

Joshua Boger, chief executive of Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. and a longtime Patrick supporter, said Patrick's final proposal contained a number of creative ideas that reflected the governor's style.

"You don't put six people in a smoke-filled room," said Boger, who served on Patrick's transition team. "You talk to hundreds of people, and you synthesize that input and make choices on it."

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Stephen Heuser can be reached at sheuser@globe.com.