Public and Financial Accountability Standards

(a) Annual Public Report

The institute shall issue an annual report to the public which sets forth its activities, grants awarded, grants in progress, research accomplishments, and future program directions. Each annual report shall include, but not be limited to, the following: the number and dollar amounts of research and facilities grants; the grantees for the prior year; the institute’s administrative expenses; an assessment of the availability of funding for stem cell research from sources other than the institute; a summary of research findings, including promising new research areas; an assessment of the relationship between the institute’s grants and the overall strategy of its research program; and a report of the institute’s strategic research and financial plans.

(b) Independent Financial Audit for Review by Controller

The institute shall annually commission an independent financial audit of its activities from a certified public accounting firm, which shall be provided to the Controller, who shall review the audit and annually issue a public report of that review.

(c) A performance audit shall be commissioned by the institute every three years beginning with the audit for the 2010-11 fiscal year. The performance audit, which may be performed by the Bureau of State Audits, shall examine the functions, operations, management systems, and policies and procedures of the institute to assess whether the institute is achieving economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the employment of available resources. The performance audit shall be conducted in accordance with government auditing standards, and shall include a review of whether the institute is complying with ICOC policies and procedures. The performance audit shall not be required to include a review of scientific performance. The first performance audit shall include, but not be limited to, all of the following:

(1) Policies and procedures for the issuance of contracts and grants and a review of a representative sample of contracts, grants, and loans executed by the institute.

(2) Policies and procedures relating to the protection or treatment of intellectual property rights associated with research funded or commissioned by the institute.

(d) All administrative costs of the audits required by subdivisions (b) and (c) shall be paid by the institute.

(e) Citizen’s Financial Accountability Oversight Committee

There shall be a Citizen’s Financial Accountability Oversight Committee chaired by the Controller. This committee shall review the annual financial audit, the Controller’s report and evaluation of that audit, and the financial practices of the institute. The Controller, the Treasurer, the President pro Tempore of the Senate, the Speaker of the Assembly, and the Chairperson of the ICOC shall each appoint a public member of the committee. Committee members shall have medical or patient advocacy backgrounds and knowledge of relevant financial matters. The committee shall provide recommendations on the institute’s financial practices and performance. The Controller shall provide staff support. The committee shall hold a public meeting, with appropriate notice, and with a formal public comment period. The committee shall evaluate public comments and include appropriate summaries in its annual report. The ICOC shall provide funds for all costs associated with the per diem expenses of the committee members and for publication of the annual report.

(f) Public Meeting Laws

(1) The ICOC shall hold at least four public meetings per year, one of which will be designated as the institute’s annual meeting. The ICOC may hold additional meetings as it determines are necessary or appropriate.

(2) The Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, Article 9 (commencing with Section 11120) of Chapter 1 of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code, shall apply to all meetings of the ICOC, except as otherwise provided in this section. The ICOC shall award all grants, loans, and contracts in public meetings and shall adopt all governance, scientific, medical, and regulatory standards in public meetings.

(3) The ICOC may conduct closed sessions as permitted by the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, under § 11126 of the Government Code. In addition, the ICOC may conduct closed sessions when it meets to consider or discuss:

(A) Matters involving information relating to patients or medical subjects, the disclosure of which would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

(B) Matters involving confidential intellectual property or work product, whether patentable or not, including, but not limited to, any formula, plan, pattern, process, tool, mechanism, compound, procedure, production data, or compilation of information, which is not patented, which is known only to certain individuals who are using it to fabricate, produce, or compound an article of trade or a service having commercial value and which gives its user an opportunity to obtain a business advantage over competitors who do not know it or use it.

(C) Matters involving prepublication, confidential scientific research, or data.

(D) Matters concerning the appointment, employment, performance, compensation, or dismissal of institute officers and employees. Action on compensation of the institute’s officers and employees shall only be taken in open session.

(4) The meeting required by paragraph (2) of subdivision (b) of Section 125290.20 shall be deemed to be a special meeting for the purposes of § 11125.4 of the Government Code.

(g) Public Records

(1) The California Public Records Act (Division 10 (commencing with Section 7920.000) of Title 1 of the Government Code) shall apply to all records of the institute, except as otherwise provided in this section.

(2) Nothing in this section shall be construed to require disclosure of any records that are any of the following:

(A) Personnel, medical, or similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

(B) Records containing or reflecting confidential intellectual property or work product, whether patentable or not, including, but not limited to, any formula, plan, pattern, process, tool, mechanism, compound, procedure, production data, or compilation of information, which is not patented, which is known only to certain individuals who are using it to fabricate, produce, or compound an article of trade or a service having commercial value and which gives its user an opportunity to obtain a business advantage over competitors who do not know it or use it.

(C) Prepublication scientific working papers or research data, including, but not limited to, applications and progress reports.

(3) The institute shall include, in all meeting minutes, a summary of vote tallies and disclosure of each board member’s votes and recusals on all action items.

(h) Competitive Bidding

(1) The institute shall, except as otherwise provided in this section, be governed by the competitive bidding requirements applicable to the University of California, as set forth in Chapter 2.1 (commencing with Section 10500) of Part 2 of Division 2 of the Public Contract Code.

(2) For all institute contracts, the ICOC shall follow the procedures required of the Regents by Chapter 2.1 (commencing with Section 10500) of Part 2 of Division 2 of the Public Contract Code with respect to contracts let by the University of California.

(3) The requirements of this section shall not be applicable to grants or loans approved by the ICOC.

(4) Except as provided in this section, the Public Contract Code shall not apply to contracts let by the institute.

(i) Conflicts of Interest

(1) The Political Reform Act, Title 9 (commencing with Section 81000) of the Government Code, shall apply to the institute and to the ICOC, except as provided in this section and in subdivision (e) of Section 125290.50.

(A) No member of the ICOC shall make, participate in making, or in any way attempt to use his or her official position to influence a decision to approve or award a grant, loan, or contract to his or her employer, but a member may participate in a decision to approve or award a grant, loan, or contract to an entity in the same field as his or her employer.

(B) A member of the ICOC may participate in a decision to approve or award a grant, loan, or contract to an entity for the purpose of research involving a disease from which a member or his or her family suffers or in which the member has an interest as a representative of a disease advocacy organization.

(C) The adoption of standards, including, but not limited to, strategic plans, concept plans, and research budgets, is not a decision subject to this section.

(2) Service as a member of the ICOC by a member of the faculty or administration of any system of the University of California shall not, by itself, be deemed to be inconsistent, incompatible, in conflict with, or inimical to the duties of the ICOC member as a member of the faculty or administration of any system of the University of California and shall not result in the automatic vacation of either such office. Service as a member of the ICOC by a representative or employee of a disease advocacy organization, a nonprofit academic and research institution, or a life science commercial entity shall not be deemed to be inconsistent, incompatible, in conflict with, or inimical to the duties of the ICOC member as a representative or employee of that organization, institution, or entity.

(3) § 1090 of the Government Code shall not apply to any grant, loan, or contract made by the ICOC except where both of the following conditions are met:

(A) The grant, loan, or contract directly relates to services to be provided by any member of the ICOC or the entity the member represents or financially benefits the member or the entity he or she represents.

(B) The member fails to recuse himself or herself from making, participating in making, or in any way attempting to use his or her official position to influence a decision on the grant, loan, or contract.

(j) Patent Royalties and License Revenues Paid to the State of California

(1) The ICOC shall establish standards that require that all grants and loan awards be subject to intellectual property agreements that balance the opportunity of the State of California to benefit from the patents, royalties, and licenses that result from basic research, therapy development, and clinical trials with the need to ensure that essential medical research is not unreasonably hindered by the intellectual property agreements. All royalty revenues received through the intellectual property agreements established pursuant to this subdivision shall be deposited into an interest-bearing account in the General Fund, and to the extent permitted by law, the amount so deposited and interest thereon shall be appropriated for the purpose of offsetting the costs of providing treatments and cures arising from institute-funded research to California patients who have insufficient means to purchase such treatment or cure, including the reimbursement of patient-qualified costs for research participants.

(2) These standards shall include, at a minimum, a requirement that CIRM grantees, other than loan recipients and facilities grant recipients, share a fraction of the revenue they receive from licensing or self-commercializing an invention or technology that arises from research funded by CIRM, as set forth below.

(A) (i) A grantee that licenses an invention or technology that arises from a research program funded by CIRM, regardless of the number of grants awarded to that research program, shall pay 25 percent of the revenues it receives in excess of five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000), in the aggregate, to the General Fund. The threshold amount of five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) shall be adjusted annually by a multiple of a fraction, the denominator of which is the Consumer Price Index, All Urban Consumers, All Items (San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose; 1982-84=100) as prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor and published for the month of October 2009, and the numerator of which is that index published for the month in which the grantee accepts the grant. For awards made on or after November 5, 2020, the threshold amount of five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000) shall be adjusted annually by a multiple of a fraction, the denominator of which is the Consumer Price Index, All Urban Consumers, All Items (San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose; 1982-84=100) as prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor and published for the month of October 2020, and the numerator of which is that index published for the month in which the grantee accepts the grant.

(ii) If funding sources other than CIRM directly contributed to the development of the invention or technology, then the return to the General Fund shall be calculated as follows: The amount of CIRM funding for the invention or technology shall be divided by the total of funding provided by all sources, and that fraction shall be multiplied by 25. That numeral is the percentage due to the General Fund.

(B) (i) A grantee that self-commercializes a product that results from an invention or technology that arises from research funded by CIRM shall pay an amount to the General Fund equal to three times the total amount of the CIRM grant or grants received by the grantee in support of the research that contributed to the creation of the product. The rate of payback of the royalty shall be at a rate of 3 percent of the annual net revenue received by the grantee from the product.

(ii) In addition to the payment required by clause (i), the first time that net commercial revenues earned by the grantee from the product exceed two hundred fifty million dollars ($250,000,000) in a calendar year, the grantee shall make a one-time payment to the General Fund equal to three times the total amount of the grant or grants awarded by CIRM to the grantee in support of the research that contributed to the creation of the product.

(iii) In addition to the payments required by clauses (i) and (ii), the first time that net commercial revenues earned by the grantee from the product exceed five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000) in a calendar year, the grantee shall make an additional one-time payment to the General Fund equal to three times the total amount of the grant or grants awarded by CIRM to the grantee in support of the research that contributed to the creation of the product.

(iv) In addition to the payments required by clauses (i), (ii), and (iii), the first time that net commercial revenues earned by the grantee from the product equal or exceed five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000) in a calendar year, the grantee shall pay the General Fund 1 percent annually of net commercial revenue in excess of five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000) for the life of any patent covering the invention or technology, if the grantee patented its invention or technology and received a CIRM grant or grants amounting to more than five million dollars ($5,000,000) in support of the research that contributed to the creation of the product.

(3) The ICOC shall have the authority to adopt regulations to implement this subdivision. The ICOC shall also have the authority to modify the formulas specified in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of paragraph (2) through regulations if the ICOC determines pursuant to paragraph (1) that a modification is required either in order to ensure that essential medical research, including, but not limited to, therapy development and the broad delivery of therapies to patients, is not unreasonably hindered, or to ensure that the State of California has an opportunity to benefit from the patents, royalties, and licenses that result from basic research, therapy development, and clinical trials. The ICOC shall notify the appropriate fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature 10 calendar days before exercising its authority to vote on the modification of the formulas specified in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of paragraph (2). The amendments made to this subdivision are not intended to affect the institute’s authority to modify the provisions set forth in this subdivision pursuant to this paragraph, including, but not limited to, any modifications that occurred prior to the effective date of the initiative amending this subdivision.

(k) Preference for California Suppliers

The ICOC shall establish standards to ensure that grantees purchase goods and services from California suppliers to the extent reasonably possible, in a good faith effort to achieve a goal of more than 50 percent of such purchases from California suppliers.

(l) Additional Accountability Requirements

To assure strict accountability and transparency, including rigorous conflict of interest rules, ethical research and treatment standards, and independent financial audits, every four years the ICOC shall update, at its discretion, the standards relating to conflict of interest rules, ethical research and treatment, and independent financial audits, to be generally aligned with standards adopted by the National Academy of Sciences to the extent that those standards are consistent with constitutional and statutory requirements applicable to the institute.

(Amended by Stats. 2021, Ch. 615, Sec. 285. (AB 474) Effective January 1, 2022. Operative January 1, 2023, pursuant to Sec. 463 of Stats. 2021, Ch. 615. Note: This section was added on Nov. 2, 2004, by initiative Prop. 71. Amended November 3, 2020, by initiative Proposition 14, Sec. 10.)