“Then why is no private money interested in funding and patenting the research?”
From what I’ve read, the whole issue is that there would be no way to reliably ‘patent’ anything. Consequently, it’s not worth the investment of time & money for a private corporation to do this research.
I doubt that's true, since companies are investing time and money into adult stem cell research.
What I read was that fetal stem cell lines are harder to control in the lab and go cancerous more often than the adult stem cells. Which should be reason enough to avoid them altogether.