Stem Cell Research Firms See Stock Increase After News of Obama Funding

Bioethics   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Nov 10, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Stem Cell Research Firms See Stock Increase After News of Obama Funding

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 10
, 2008

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — After weekend news making it appear all but certain that Barack Obama will force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research, the stocks of some biotech firms saw a surge in price in Monday trading. Companies such as Geron Corp that deal in the controversial cells and cloning benefited.

Shares of Geron were up as much as 16 percent while other companies such as StemCells Inc, Aastrom Biosciences Inc and others also rose on the news.

WBB Securities analyst Steve Brozak talked with Reuters about the stock price jumps.

"People now know what the future executive landscape is going to look like, and they are trying to figure out how to profit from it," he said. "We will see more and more of these events just given the fact that there is more and more path for the commercialization of stem cells — adult, placental, umbilical and now, more embryonic."

That Obama would reverse the policies of President Bush that prevented making taxpayers fund new research that involves the destruction of human life has drawn praise from researchers involved with the unproven cells.

Dr. Clayton Smith, who went to Canada five years ago from the U.S., told the Vancouver Sun that he was "literally in tears" when Obama won last week "and I may even choke up even talking about it."

"Watching the election last night was a singular event, like watching the Berlin Wall fall," Smith said.

As LifeNews.com reported, Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat who has been one of the primary members of Congress pushing for embryonic stem cell research funding, prodded Obama during the campaign to make it a priority.

She told the Washington Post that supporters of funding the destructive and unproven research have already drafted language for an executive order that Obama can use.

Put in place in August 2001, the Bush policy prevents taxpayers from paying for new embryonic research that involves the destruction of human life. Bush directed most of the public funding for the science to adult stem cells, which are more ethical and have proven more effective than their embryonic counterparts.

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