Governor Patrick just made his announcement at BIO: $1 billion over the next 10 years for life sciences and stem cells research, including the establishment of a stem cell bank. Here are some details, according to the Globe.

>$500 million for public higher education and equipment to be used in collaboration with the life sciences industry

$250 million for research grants, fellowships, and training initiatives

$250 million in tax benefits

$250 million in matching funds for grants, fellowships, and training for private companies

The state legislature would need to approve this plan first. With some of the money coming from state funds (the rest from bonds), I wonder what the public will think of this. That money could be spent elsewhere like improving K-12 science/math education. Yes, NIH funding is on the decrease, but Massachusetts hasn’t exactly been suffering from lack of NIH money. The Bay state ranked #1 in the US in 2005 in terms of per capita NIH funding and I doubt MA would lose that top spot anytime soon. And the venture capital community here is one of the biggest in the country. Glad to see that some money will go to public higher ed and tax benefits: biotech/pharma execs have complained about the high corporate taxes here compared to other states.

Still, with similar stem cell research funding schemes passing in California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, I’d be surprised if there will be a huge public outcry here.

Update_: Here’s a op-edbiotech/ by Patrick that will appear in tomorrow’s Globe. It gives a few more details of what the money will be spent on:

• grants for young researchers
• a nanotechnology center at UMass-Lowell
• a new RNAi facility at UMass Medical in Worcester
• the Massachusetts Stem Cell Bank at UMass. “Once completed, the bank will hold the largest collection of stem cell lines in the world…”