 |
 |
|
Dr. Rohrbaugh explained the history and experience of technology transfer in biomedical research in the US. In addition, he mentioned the importance of non-exclusive research licensing for research tools.
|
- Thank you very much, Dr. Rohrbaugh, for giving us your time today. How has NIH’s role in the U.S. biomedical research community evolved over the past decade?
Dr. Rohrbaugh：
Overall, I think that the technology transfer community in the United States has matured in academic and government laboratories. It’s become even clearer that new technologies arising from university and government research are important early-stage tools and early-stage product leads for both the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. The types of collaborations have become more complex, more mature in that sense. We continue to collaborate in a flexible way as much as we can within the boundaries of our policies and statutory framework, to collaborate with industry, to move these technologies forward for further research and development.
-
If you could point to one or two things in how biomedical research and development has changed over the last period of time and how NIH has adjusted its strategy, or what kind of an impact those changes have had on NIH, what would you say two examples would be?
Dr. Rohrbaugh：
One would be investing in our tech transfer process and infrastructure in a more deliberate way, to making good investments as early as possible and then periodically reevaluating those investments to see if we want to continue investing. In patenting technologies, I think we are more careful about what patents we file and, where they appear to be necessary, to use them as an incentive through licensing and technology transfer to move them forward. We no longer just patent anything that looks good scientifically. Since these are early-stage technologies, that is not a one-time process. We evaluate technologies periodically, as whether the science and the patent have progressed as we anticipated, and whether it still appears that spending money on patent prosecution will be useful ultimately in the technology transfer process.
-
It’s been ten years since the launch of the NIH advisory group which called for guidelines on the transfer of biomedical research materials. What kind of an impact do you think the NIH guidelines have had on the biomedical research community in the United States?
Dr. Rohrbaugh：
At the time, of course, there was some controversy about it and a lot of discussion which gave rise to these guidelines. It seems today they are taken for granted by most people in technology transfer as the way one should operate technology transfer functions. What was a bit controversial ten years ago is now in most places accepted best practice for managing research tools in the technology transfer process.
