Texas Voters OK 3 Billion Dollars In New Cancer Funding

Main Category: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 08 Nov 2007 - 1:00 PST

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Texans' 61% support on Tuesday for a commitment to provide $3 billion in funding for cancer research over the next ten years is a clear signal to researchers, investors and cancer advocates that Texas will be a major focal point of activity in the next phases of the fight against the disease, according to BioHouston CEO Jacqueline Northcut.

"When this commitment is leveraged 100% with matching funds from the grant recipients, the total $6 billion effect will be one-fifth larger than the entire National Cancer Institute annual budget and a watershed point in the state's emergence as a life science center," Northcut said. The new funding will be an addition to the $1.5 billion in annual life science research conducted in the Houston region that has helped to double the number of life science companies in the region to more than 130, she noted.

"This new cancer prevention and research funding will help us recruit internationally recognized leaders to Texas, to stimulate collaborations between universities, to take on new initiatives and approaches, and to support the training of future researchers and physicians," Northcut predicted.

The measure approved by Texas voters Tuesday creates the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and authorizes the Institute to issue up to $300 million per year in bonds to fund cancer research grants, research facilities, and cancer prevention and control programs. Not more than 5% of total grant awards can be used for facility construction, and not more than 10% for prevention and control programs. The focus of the Institute's activities will be on institutions, facilities, research, and programs in Texas.

At a recent BioHouston conference for venture capitalists and life science start-up companies, Texas Governor Rick Perry noted that more than 77,000 Texans develop cancer each year, and described the disease as the state's number-two killer, ending the lives of more than 35,000 Texans annually. As a result of funding the new Institute, Perry predicted, "We're going to lure some of the brightest minds -- there are going to be people that never thought ten or 15 years ago that they'd be living in the Lone Star State."

BioHouston is a non-profit organization founded by Houston-region academic/research institutions to lead the effort to establish the Houston region as a vigorous global competitor in life science and biotechnology commercialization.

http://www.biohouston.org