No ties, except that the major investor in the company that got the $11M is a major campaign donor to Rick Perry.
barfo
They gave $11M straight to his campaign donor? That's real news, barfo. You have a scoop on your hands.
Meanwhile, the real investigators say otherwise.
http://www.dallasnews.com/investiga...es-grant-to-dallas-firm.ece?action=reregister
CPRIT also released a nine-page report from executive director Bill Gimson about the Peloton grant. Two Republican legislators, who wrote the law five years ago that created the agency, requested the report.
Gimson’s report says a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, the Column Group, approached CPRIT in June 2010 to try to get state funding to help create Peloton.
Steven McKnight, chairman of biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical Center, was a founder of Peloton. Based on the UTSW campus, Peloton is using laboratory discoveries made at UTSW to try to develop anti-cancer drugs.
Gimson wrote that the Column Group has three scientific advisers who are Nobel laureates, including Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein. Goldstein is chairman of UTSW’s department of molecular genetics. Brown is a professor at the medical center.
Both Brown and Goldstein are longtime colleagues of Gilman.
Gimson’s report says Gilman told Cobbs he was “very enthusiastic” about Peloton’s plans.
Referring to the Column Group, Gimson wrote: “The investment firm wanted to start the company in Texas, associated with UT Southwestern; however, Peloton stated that if CPRIT was not interested they would have to consider other locations around the country.”
Peloton lined up $18 million in commitments of private capital from the Column Group, Dallas-based Remeditex Ventures and Dallas philanthropist Peter O’Donnell.
O’Donnell and his wife have contributed more than $240,000 to Gov. Rick Perry’s state campaigns since 2000 and about $200,000 to Lt. Gov David Dewhurst, according to the Texas Ethics Commission.
...
Gimson called Cobbs’ action a misunderstanding and said that “there was no other intent than trying to quickly start efforts to get lifesaving products to Texans with cancer.”
At the time that the Oversight Committee ratified the Peloton grant, Gimson said CPRIT didn’t have specific procedures for proposals like the one Peloton had developed.
“Admittedly, we did not have all of the checks and balances in place,” Gimson told the Oversight Committee.
Gimson apologized for the failure to review Peloton’s proposal and took full responsibility for it.
“No grants have ever been funded for personal gain or ever will be,” he added.
