SCS/HS/HB 555 - This act creates a Life Sciences Research Program within the Department of Health, provides for disposition of the tobacco settlement proceeds and submits the entire act to the voters.

Life Sciences Research Program A seven member Life Sciences Research Board shall distribute grants to increase the capacity and infrastructure for, and improve the quantity and quality of, life science research in the state. The Board may make provisions for peer review panels to research and review grant proposals. In determining projects to authorize, the Board shall consider those endorsed by a center for excellence, established in the act, subject to peer review. The act contains limits on the amounts that organizations with a single center for excellence may receive.

Centers for excellence for life sciences research are established in the areas of St. Louis and Kansas City, and for the University of Missouri system, to be regional consortiums of public and private not-for-profit academic, research or health care institutions engaged in competitive research in targeted fields. The Board may establish additional geographic areas within the state for such centers, upon making specified findings.

The Governor shall appoint a seven-member Life Sciences Research Committee to review and approve the organizational structures of the named centers for excellence, and shall thereafter immediately disband. The act establishes the Life Sciences Research Fund. The Board shall control the management of moneys in the Fund.

Grant recipients shall have the duty to ensure timely disclosure of their research findings to the scientific community, and to promote public availability of their inventions and other intellectual property developed in the performance of research funded by a grant award. Institutions or organizations receiving grant awards shall retain intellectual property rights, but the Life Sciences Board is authorized to adopt reasonable regulations to insure that intellectual property rights are utilized in the public interest.

Tobacco Settlement Trust Fund The act also provides for the disposition of the tobacco settlement moneys received by the state. The act creates a Missouri Settlement Trust Fund within the state treasury for deposit of all tobacco settlement proceeds. Moneys in the Fund shall be used to establish, by a one-time appropriation, an endowment fund to be known as the "Fund for Missouri's Future", which shall be subject to appropriation only upon a two-thirds vote of the elected members of the General Assembly. Remaining moneys in the Tobacco Settlement Trust Fund shall be used for the following purposes:

(2) 15%, Life sciences and medical research;

(3) 55%, Prescription drug coverage and health care;

(4) 15%, Tobacco prevention, education and cessation, including programs to prevent tobacco usage by minors;

(5) 15%, Early childhood and youth development care and education, including community grants.

The percentages allocated will expire on July 1, 2006. The percentages may be modified before that date for a period of two fiscal years, by a two-thirds vote.

All moneys appropriated constitute additional amounts over and above appropriation of general revenues and will not reduce funding from general revenue below levels as of July 1, 2000. The tobacco settlement proceeds shall not be total state revenues for purposes of Article X of the Missouri Constitution. The Commissioner of Administration shall establish books of account to ensure the appropriate deposit and expenditure of the moneys. Any funds received by the state as a result of any legal settlement or award which are not legally dedicated to a specific purpose shall be subject to appropriation for health care purposes.

The act is submitted to a vote of the people, and if passed, shall become effective on July 1, 2002.
JOAN GUMMELS