Posts Tagged: "tech transfer"

Nothing clarified the stakes in orphan drug development like hearing Ron Bartek describe how after 16 years a promising treatment for his son’s disease finally emerged with TRND’s help. The therapy demonstrated enough potential that it was licensed by a small company which took it through Phase I and II trials. Both showed very promising results. Ron choked up describing how he felt after such a long struggle to help his child and finally seeing a real glimpse of hope. Everyone in the room shared the lump in his throat. A day like that reminds you why tech transfer and intellectual property are so important. When used correctly they improve and protect lives all around the world.

Professor Love has concluded that universities do not earn returns on their investment in patents and at the same time concluded that more than half of all respondents to his survey admitted they do not know anything about what the survey was purporting to study… This paper by Professor Love should never have been presented at a conference at Stanford. It should not be published by any journal, let alone the prestigious Yale Journal of Law & Technology. It is sloppy, careless work like this that produces worthless published papers and incorrect theories and encourages academics to simply reinforce their own beliefs without requiring any form of review, replication, or confirmation.

Recently I visited a Congressional office with a friend who led technology transfer at a public institution located in a mid-level city not normally associated with innovation. By skillfully using the authorities of Bayh-Dole and the patent system combined with good business judgment the program was very successful in start up formation and licensing, making it a driver of the regional economy. The Congressional staff were effusive in their praise of the results, which are well known in the state, vowing to do everything they could to support continued success. However, just before the meeting my friend confided that their new leadership made it clear that they did not consider technology transfer a profession requiring special skills and experience. The staff that labored so long and hard building the program got the hint and was leaving. Luckily their achievement is recognized by other institutions that are happy to snap them up. Unfortunately, the economy of the area they left behind will pay a high price for this boneheaded mistake.

MUIR: “There are approximately 40 countries around the world that have enacted their own version of the Bayh-Dole legislation because they have seen the numbers. They have seen the success that the United States has had in commercializing these discoveries. We truly are the envy of the rest of the world. In three or four months I’m going to be visiting about six different countries. What they want to hear about is how is the U.S. achieving this level of success. So oftentimes we look at our own backyard and don’t have a full appreciation of the beautiful flowers growing there but there are lots of beautiful flowers growing in our tech transfer profession in the United States.”

Any government truly interested in commercializing its research must realize that time is of the essence, risk is inherent in the process and deal makers should be supported by process. Napoleon adopted the motto: “Not a moment must be lost.” But quoting Napoleon may be too intimidating for times like these, so how about Larry the Cable Guy? Perhaps we still retain enough of the American spirit to embrace: “Git ‘er done!” Time will tell (perhaps sooner than we imagine). We’ve been trying to drive the federal R&D system with the parking brake on. It’s time to put product people behind the wheel, buckle the process people safely in, release the brake, hit the gas and get rolling. Those that used to be far behind are coming up fast in our rear view mirror.

The government is funding basic research at universities, not drug development. Bayh-Dole allows schools to own resulting inventions and license them for commercialization. These discoveries are more like ideas than products. The expense and risk of development falls on the private sector. A study in Nature Biotechnology on drugs commercialized from federally-funded inventions finds: “the private sector spends 100-fold or more to bring the product to market than the PSRI (public-sector research institution) spends in research directly leading to the invention.” Here’s why: for every 10,000 compounds about 250 make it to preclinical testing, 5 go to clinical trials, and one enters the marketplace. Of these just 20% turn a profit– and they must pay for all those which died in the pipeline.

First of all, congratulations! You made The Washington Post and they even spelled your name correctly. Unfortunately, AUTM was specifically called out in an article titled Patent Trolls Have a Surprising Ally: Universities… For a profession that keeps a low profile and goes out of its way not to antagonize people, you may wonder what in the world’s going on that you are gaining such notoriety. The answer is that you are in the sights of several groups who do not wish you well. Some want to weaken the patent system for their short term benefit, some believe society would be better off if inventions were freely available without patents; some don’t think it’s moral for universities to work with industry, and others believe they should determine who reaps the rewards of innovation. While operating on diverse belief systems, they all have one thing in common: they don’t like you.

At IPWatchdog.com we write about Bayh-Dole, technology transfer and University innovation regularly. In 2014 we are going to more regularly write about University innovations in the hope of getting good information out to the public to demonstrate the important role of Bayh- Dole and the innovations coming from Universities. Help us help you! Below is a list of the information that would be extremely helpful to have, much of which we could not obtain publicly. Critical to a good, interesting story is conveying the back story, which may be about why the inventor pursued this path in the first place or perhaps about real people who have benefit from the innovation. I understand that some of the following piece of information may be deemed to be confidential, but the more you provide the more substantive and interesting any article can be, which will lead to greater “good publicity,” which patent owners sorely need in this political climate.

Unfortunately, I’ve known for a couple of weeks what this month’s column was likely to be about. After a brief illness, my friend Howard Bremer died last Friday… Working through WARF, Howard’s efforts were critical in our eventual success enacting Bayh-Dole despite long odds. Over the years, he remained a steadfast defender pushing back against the critics of the patent system… Howard attended the Association of University Technology Managers meeting this year—an organization he helped found in the 1970’s to foster the profession. Howard knew it was his last as he was not physically able to travel any longer. But there was no sadness; he enjoyed seeing many of his friends for what he knew was the final time…

The medical research university is heavily involved with developments for medical diagnostics, as many of the following applications show. One patent application describes a system of searching for similar images within a medical imaging database to aid in diagnosing issues. Another patent application would protect a system of developing a personalized library of tumor development indicators for cancer patients to determine if a cancer recurrence is forming. A third application discusses a method of analyzing albumin/peptide compounds in a patient’s plasma to determine if a blood flow issue exists. Other patent applications we feature here focus on improvements to surgical procedures. One patent application explains a new development for specialized surgical robotics and an improved interface for surgeon control. Finally, we feature a patent application discussing a minimally invasive surgical treatment for obesity using a gastric sponge.

Many of the University of Texas’s medical developments involve the use of synthetic materials to aid in treating patients. One patent application would protect a scaffold for tissue engineering that biodegrades and delivers treatment over time. Another application describes a system of using nanoparticles to stimulate hyperthermia to treat tumors. A third application discusses an improved bioadhesive for sealing tissues together. Other notable patent application filings pertain to improved systems of diagnosing and treating diseases that usually cause a poor prognosis in patients. One patent application deals with a system of analyzing gene expressions to determine a patient’s susceptibility to renal cell carcinoma. A final application we feature provides for a more effective course of treatment for most gastrointestinal tract infections.

The Bayh-Dole Act was passed because Congress was rightly concerned that potential benefits from billions of dollars of federally funded research were lying dormant on the shelves of government. Government funded inventions tend to be very early stage discoveries—more like ideas than products—requiring considerable private sector risk and investment to turn them into products that can be used by the public. Under prior patent polices government agencies took such inventions away from their creators and offered them non-exclusively for development. There were no incentives for the inventors to remain engaged in product development. Not surprisingly, few such inventions were ever commercialized even though billions of dollars were being spent annually on government R&D.