The governing board of the $3 billion
California stem cell agency will lose another one of its veteran
members this year – Michael Friedman, the CEO of the City of Hope
in the Los Angeles area.

He will join Claire Pomeroy in leaving
the board. Pomeroy is resigning as vice chancellor of Human Health
Services at UC Davis this spring to become president of the Lasker Foundation in New York.. Friedman is retiring at the end of this year.

Both have been on the CIRM board since
its first meeting in December 2004. Pomeroy was appointed by the UC
Davis chancellor. Friedman was appointed by the state treasurer.

No names have surfaced concerning
likely successors. However, the UC Davis chancellor is required by
law to appoint an executive officer from the campus. The new dean at
the UCD medical school would seem to be the most likely candidate.

To fill Friedman's seat, Treasurer Bill
Lockyer must appoint an executive officer from a California research
institute. The tradition on the board has been for particular
institutes to hold particular seats on the board. The major exception
is the Salk Institute, which lost a seat on the board a few years
back.

Both UC Davis and the City of Hope have
benefited enormously from CIRM largess. UC Davis has received $131
million and the City of Hope $51 million. Although Friedman and
Pomeroy have not been allowed to vote on grants to their
institutions, their presence and the presence on the board of other executives
from beneficiary institutions has triggered calls for sweeping changes at the agency.

A blue-ribbon report by the Institute
of Medicine said “far too many” board members are linked to
institutions that receive money from CIRM. The institute recommended
that a new majority of independent members be created on the board.

According to compilations by the
California Stem Cell Report, about 90 percent of the $1.8 billion the
board has awarded has gone to institutions with ties to past and
present board members. Fifteen of the 29 members of the board, which
has no independent members along the lines suggested by the IOM, are
linked to recipient institutions.

The agency has $700 million remaining
before money for new awards runs out in less than four years.