chron.com: Anatomy of A Grant

msippiqueen

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Anatomy-of-a-grant-Emails-indicate-cancer-agency-3622443.php

msippiqueen

Forgot to add the other Houston Chronicle Sunday front page above the fold headline:





http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2012/06/after-flawed-cancer-grant-process-some-reforms-made-more-needed/

jenrio

Interesting, but let's not overreact.    10+ million dollar is not a lot if they require buying expensive equipment, or hire 10 brilliant clinical/scientist, or the state has a stake in whatever promising research they end up doing.  

But transparency is always a good thing. Reporters are doing their job (digging to the bottom of an opaque process),  the scientists should be doing their jobs (figuring out the science and the cure), patients need to do their jobs too (self-education, survival and share their own data with researchers).   

msippiqueen

Edit: the following statements has some direct quotes from the first linked article and are the high points. Some twists and turns were left out but the entire article can be read quickly.

The Cancer Prevention Research Initiative of Texas (CPRIT) a 3 year old initiative, was voted on by Texan citizens, then established by $3 Billion in taxpayer funds, after understanding the goal was to get new cancer drugs through the pipeline more quickly, by way of moving small established biotech firms to TX.

Now, CPRIT wants to fund "incubator" biotech companies.



Dr Chin, a physician at MD Anderson and co-founder of a biotech company with her husband, Dr DePinho,the President of MD Anderson, landed the grant at the heart of the investigation - approximately $18 million for a single year.



A reviewer for this grant, New York biotech consultant Kapil Dinghra, wrote that the amount of money Chin was seeking would pay for "several real and tangible biotech companies," as opposed to hypothetical companies that might emerge from the M.D. Anderson proposal.



CPRIT handled the grant application in a hasty manner designed to circumvent its own scientific reviewers, specifically the chief scientist Dr Alford Gilman, a highly regarded Nobel Prize Winner. He has resigned over this issue.



The role of a Houston venture capitalist, Charles Tate, (Royal Capital) who invests in companies that commercialize drugs and has ties to M.D. Anderson and to CPRIT is having his influential role investigated



Royal Capital has a four-person "strategic advisory committee" that guides it's on biotech investments. One of the four is John Mendelsohn, DePinho's predecessor, who led M.D. Anderson for 15 years. Another is Henri Termeer, who is on the board of directors of Aveo Pharmaceuticals, a company co-founded by DePinho and Chin in Boston.

jenrio

Dr Chin is involved in Cancer genome atlas:

http://cancergenome.nih.gov/cancersselected

It sounds like a good project (data is publicly available), though i wish they take more samples.  

I'm not terribly surprised nor dismayed by the irregularities in funding.  Some scientists complain about the funding process distract from their scientific research, some scientists get their funding irregularly.   As long as the science gets the cure, I don't care how they get funding, the sooner the better.

But again, reporters are doing a good job here.   Famous scientists or wife of famous scientists/administrators should be above reproach.  A higher standard than a graduate student for example...

msippiqueen

Oh Gosh Jenrio, I thought I posted some comments for you but they're not here. None of them were important, I've just enjoyed our online conversation.



I'll pop back in once in a while to see if you or anybody else has anything to add.

msippiqueen

Today's paper 'bout wraps it up. Least far I'll follow it.



http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/UT-review-finds-no-problems-in-controversial-3634323.php

gpawelski

The National Cancer Institute confirmed that federal officials are taking a closer look at a troubled $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas that is under a criminal investigation over a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant awarded by the state agency.

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas has coveted status as an NCI-approved funding entity — an exclusive group headlined by the nation's most prominent cancer organizations. The list is fewer than two dozen and includes the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and federal entities like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The designation is a federal seal-of-approval that signals high peer review standards and conflict of interest policies. Yearlong turmoil within the Texas institute, or CPRIT, reached a new peak this week when the agency's beleaguered chief executive asked to resign and prosecutors opened cases following an $11 million grant to a private company that was revealed to have bypassed an independent review.

NCI spokeswoman Aleea Farrakh Khan told The Associated Press that officials are "evaluating recent events" at CPRIT. She said officials have not made decisions or contacted the agency directly.

NCI designation is not required for CPRIT to continue running the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars, Khan said. But jeopardizing that status — and especially losing it — would be a severe blow to CPRIT's reputation, which already has been battered by sweeping resignations, internal accusations of politics trumping science and now a criminal investigation.

A recent internal audit at CPRIT discovered an $11 million funding request from Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics was approved without the agency ever scrutinizing the proposal's merits. The revelation came only months after two Nobel laureates and other top scientists left the agency in protest over a $20 million grant some accused of being rushed to approval without a proper peer review.

While CPRIT is funded by taxpayers, donors to cancer nonprofits might look to an NCI designation for assurance that their money is in good hands.

"It says, 'If I'm donating money to this agency, if NCI is approving them, that means NCI says it's handling its money well,'" Khan said.

Khan added that CPRIT's inclusion on the list does not mean all of its funding mechanisms are NCI-approved.

An entire page of CPRIT's website is devoted to boasting its NCI designation. The agency says the status is important because it means cancer centers in Texas seeking its own NCI designation — so as to reassure patients or bolster recruitment — can include CPRIT research dollars in their calculations to maintain levels needed to be NCI approved.

"This enhances Texas' ability to leverage additional federal funding for cancer research and raises Texas' profile as a center for cancer research," according to the website.

Executive Director Bill Gimson submitted his resignation letter Tuesday but offered to stay on through January. He has described Peloton's improper funding as an honest mistake and said no one associated with CPRIT stood to personally profit from the company's award.

Prosecutors have not made any specific criminal allegations. Launching separate investigations into CPRIT are the Texas attorney general's office and the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit, which investigates criminal misconduct within state government.

modernhealthcare.com

gpawelski

$25M Texas cancer trial network shuts down

A fledgling Texas cancer trials network announced Tuesday that it had shut down after auditors found more than $300,000 in expenses deemed inappropriate in the latest blow to the state's troubled $3 billion cancer-fighting agency.

The Clinical Trials Network of Texas received a $25 million grant from the state in 2010, though it had only received about $7 million in taxpayer dollars before running out of money last month. State officials began halting payments after auditors raised questions that included how the network even won funding in the first place.

The clinical trial network, or CTNeT, obtained the largest grant ever awarded by the embattled Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, which now adds this failure to a litany of woes. Those include an ongoing criminal investigation, mass resignations and rebuke from lawmakers and scientists over controversial awards and accusations of political meddling.

A scathing report of the institute released by state auditors this week revealed that Patricia Winger, the chief operations officer of CTNeT, was paid $160,000 in bonuses on top of her base salary. CTNeT also spent more than $116,000 for interior decorations and furniture, which auditors said are expenses "unallowable or questionable" for a research grant under state agency rules.

Dr. Charles Geyer, chief medical officer of CTNetT, told The Associated Press the nonprofit needed to set up offices for its 36 employees. He said he wasn't involved in the decisions surrounding Winger's bonuses but defended her role, saying she used her own money to help get the effort off the ground.

Attempts to reach Winger through CTNeT and others affiliated with the network were not immediately successful Tuesday.

"I understand the appearance. But I know Ms. Winger, and she did a lot," Geyer said. "She worked basically for three months before she got her first paycheck. ...She made a lot of sacrifices because she was committed to this."

Geyer said he did not know Winger's salary. Thirty employees with CTNet have been laid off, and Geyer said the remaining six are working at minimum wage to finish winding down the initiative.

Geyer said the trial network is folding just as progress was finally being made. Just a week ago, Geyer said, the network was on the verge of enrolling patients in its first clinical trial.

"The real irony is that we were really on the cusp of launching the thing in a very serious way," Geyer said.

Bill Gimson, the former executive director of cancer institute who resigned last month as problems with the state agency mounted, said in an email to the AP that the intent of the network was to provide more opportunities for Texas cancer patients to enroll in clinical trials. Only 3 percent of Texans with cancer are in clinical trials, Gimson said.

"CTNeT was created for Texas to help cancer patients in the State access a higher level of care," GImson said. "It is groundbreaking, imaginative and revolutionary and does not fit the mold of, nor can be judged as, a typical state-funded effort."

The cancer institute was a darling of the scientific community and some of the nation's biggest advocacy groups, including the American Cancer Society, after launching in 2009 as an unprecedented cancer-fighting effort on the state level. The agency oversees the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars, next to only the federal National Institutes of Health.

That money is now frozen, with the institute under a moratorium until confidence in the agency is restored. Prior to CTNeT shutting down, most troublesome to the state agency was awarding $11 million to a private biotech firm in Dallas despite never reviewing the company's proposal.

That led to public corruption officers in Travis County and the Texas attorney general's office launched separate investigations. No one has been accused of wrongdoing.

modernhealthcare.com