Dr. Frances Ligler is a pioneer in biosensor activity and a member of the 2017 class of inductees into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. This New Years’ Eve 2017 marked the 26th anniversary of the issue of a foundational patent in the field of portable optical biosensors, devices which are more adept at providing biological analysis in the field and outside of clinical lab settings.
Concerns about the ability of academic institutions to keep contributing to the U.S. innovation economy go well beyond federal funding stagnation according to the recent AUTM survey. In an executive summary section entitled The Perils of Eroding Patent Rights, AUTM notes that a slight decrease in options and exclusive license agreements compared to the number of non-exclusive license agreements could be due to fears that licensing companies have over protecting the intellectual property under the current iteration of the U.S. patent system. In 2016, option agreements were down year-over-year by 7 percent while exclusive licenses dropped 2.1 percent. Non-exclusive license totals, however, rose by 2.1 percent to 4,201 such license agreements in 2016. A sharp increase in startups ceasing business activity, up 37.4 percent to a total of 331 such startups, is another “ominous trend” which AUTM notes is likely attributable to eroding patent rights.
Novartis has agreed to acquire French radiopharmaceutical firm Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA) in a deal which values AAA at $3.9 billion USD. The deal, funded through short- and long-term debt, adds the radioligand therapy (RDL) known as Lutathera to the Novartis pipeline. This drug, approved for use in the European Union and currently undergoing trials for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is used in the treatment of patients suffering from neuroendocrine tumors.