What’s University Technology Transfer Got to Do With It?
April 2020
Universities are fulfilling an extremely important role in addressing the coronavirus COVID-19 crisis, and technology transfer has an important part to play in some of this.
1. What are universities doing?
Universities around the world are leading national and international efforts to develop the vaccine that can lead us out of the crisis. They are compiling and providing their substantial laboratory equipment inventories to support national testing programmes, both the tests to know if you have it, and the tests to know if you have had it. They are designing face masks and other forms of personal protective equipment; in many cases they are also using their 3-D printing resources to produce high volumes of these. They are designing ventilators and patient support systems, based on the simplest, most reproducible engineering and design concepts. University academics are frequent commentators on radio and television programmes, often providing the sound, calm voice of reason and fact alongside more excited political and society commentators.
In the US, the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Systems Science and Engineering is leading the world in COVID-19 case and death data collection and presentation. In New York, Columbia scientists have designed simpler, cheaper face shields, and over one million are being manufactured for delivery to NYC and regional hospitals. At Yale, a new drug for lung fibrosis developed a few years ago shows promise for treating certain life-threatening effects of COVID-19, and the research team is rapidly laying the groundwork for clinical trials. The Yale COVID-19 Treatment team has created and released a treatment plan for both severe and non-severe cases of the disease. At MIT, many MIT-affiliated start-ups are working on solutions to various aspects of COVID-19, and MIT is helping to identify opportunities to invest in a solution.
In the UK, researchers at the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London produced the report which finally persuaded the government to get serious about the crisis. Also in London, a team of UCL engineers, UCLH clinicians and industry partners Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains have developed a breathing aid that can help keep COVID-19 patients out of intensive care. All the files necessary to build the UCL-Ventura breathing aid have been released. Cambridge University, together with the Wellcome Sanger Institute, is coordinating the collaboration between expert groups across the UK to analyse the genetic code of COVID-19 samples circulating in the UK giving public health agencies and clinicians a unique, cutting-edge tool to combat the virus. A joint collaboration between AstraZeneca, GSK and the University of Cambridge will set up a new testing laboratory for high throughput screening for Covid-19 testing. It will also explore the use of alternative chemical reagents for test kits in order to help overcome current supply shortages. Oxford University is coordinating the world’s largest randomised clinical trial of potential coronavirus treatments as part of the race to find a treatment. A number of promising treatments are being tested and definitive results on whether the treatments are safe and effective are expected within months and, if positive, they could potentially benefit hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. The Randomised Evaluation of COV-id19 thERapY (RECOVERY) trial is the largest randomised controlled trial of potential COVID-19 treatments in the world with almost 1,000 patients recruited in two weeks.
Well-funded high-quality research universities are a major national and international asset.
2. Beyond the university: university-business collaborations
The outcomes of all these endeavours are being provided as quickly as possible, as openly as possible, and as freely as possible. No-one wants to be seen to be profiteering from the crisis or favouring one group over another. The open, generous approach from university researchers is here it is, do whatever you can.
The development of university-business collaborations in recent decades helps with this. University researchers now have more experience of collaborative endeavours involving business. Researchers have seen colleagues engage successfully with businesses, small and large, and enhance not damage academic careers. These days University people know industry people: the researchers know each other; the research development managers know the business development managers; the CEOs know the Presidents and Vice-Chancellors. Thousands of research collaboration and commercialisation agreements have been negotiated and signed. The mechanics of getting the necessary arrangements in place is well understood.
The fact that university-business interactions have increased massively in recent decades and the mechanics of concluding effective transactions are well-understood will help. Existing university spin-out companies are working on technology solutions in diagnostics, equipment and vaccines. The fact that universities are far improved in helping establish these companies and the volume of early stage investment finance has increased massively are helping.
The relationships always come first. However, the ability to execute effective transactions is extremely important: when does it start, when does it end, who is involved, what is the plan, can we tell people, who is paying for what, what if something goes wrong, who owns the outputs, who can use the outputs etc.
3. Role of TT and TTOs
The university research outputs referred to above will be transferred out from the universities into other organisations (government agencies, charities and for-profit businesses) better placed to develop, design, manufacture and deliver products and services to help people; universities can only do so much.
University technology transfer offices (TTOs) can use their expertise to provide everyone who needs it with access to the rights and freedoms to use what is being developed in the universities. The expertise and experiences developed over recent decades amongst university researchers and within university technology transfer offices will help make this happen fast and effectively.
The purpose of university technology transfer is to transfer university research results from the university out to businesses where the results are developed into new products and services that benefit society. This need not be about money at all; but some of it maybe, and that is ok. University TTOs will be working on providing access to their existing stock of protected intellectual property and also the new solutions that are being created now in direct response to the crisis.
In the US, the TTOs at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Yale have published the COVID-19 Technology Access Framework to enable the adoption of university developed approaches to addressing the coronavirus. The Framework uses ‘rapidly executable non-exclusive royalty-free licenses to intellectual property rights that we have the right to license, for the purpose of making and distributing products to prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19 infection during the pandemic and for a short period thereafter. In return for these royalty-free licenses, we are asking the licensees for a commitment to distribute the resulting products as widely as possible and at a low cost that allows broad accessibility during the term of the license.’
In London, UCL Business has made its e-lucid express licensing platform freely available to any university or researcher in the world that wishes to license under controlled conditions technologies that could help battle, model or better understand the pandemic.
In Oxford, the University and its TTO have adopted revised guidance to accelerate the licensing of relevant intellectual property (IP) for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, to avoid unnecessary delays or missed opportunities to understand, manage and protect against the threat posed. They have issued fresh guidance for access to University of Oxford IP, intended to avoid any unnecessary delay in adoption: expedited access is offered to enable global deployment at scale of associated products and services to address the COVID-19 pandemic; and by default the TTO will offer non-exclusive, royalty-free licences to support free of charge, at-cost or cost + limited margin supply as appropriate, for the duration of the pandemic. Licence terms for supplying downstream (post-pandemic) commercial markets will be the subject of a separate agreement, and the grant during the pandemic does not guarantee it will be granted downstream commercial rights.
University technology transfer offices can file patent applications and then allow the right organisations to use the inventions to develop the products and services to benefit people. The use of patent rights to protect inventions that may be used to address aspects of the Coronavirus crisis will be criticised. Patent rights allow owners to prevent some and allow others to use inventions, over a long period of time. Governments have rights to intervene to make patent rights available in exceptional circumstances such as these, should this be necessary. A sense of shame, embarrassment and reputation management is more likely to lead to patent owners making inventions available without seeking profits to address the crisis; if not, governments can step in.
4. What about the money?
University technology transfer is not about the money. The number one priority has always been to transfer technologies, and other research outputs, for development into products and services that can help people. Making money comes further down the list of priorities; it is reasonable for universities to share in the commercial success of university research outputs.
Allowing other organisations to use your patent rights is not only about money; licensing transactions include many important considerations for all the parties, even if no money is passing hands. The expertise within the TTO will help: liabilities, warranties, indemnities (what if things go wrong?); termination (what if the development partner isn’t up to it, or starts mis-using the invention?); field of use and duration (how do you anticipate the world-order in a few years’ time?). These appear as mostly negative points, however those with experience understand the importance of anticipating things not working out; not least so others can have a go.
The TTO at Oxford University was instrumental in putting in place a consortium of organisations to develop a potential Tuberculosis vaccine candidate a few years ago. The 2009 agreements allowed for a commercial company (Emergent BioSolutions) to develop the technology and seek a return on its risk investment from use in ‘rich’ countries, whilst also supporting the deployment of the vaccine in ‘poor’ countries. Very sadly for global health the vaccine did not make it through the clinical trials; the expertise developed in addressing the challenges will help with this crisis.
In the US and elsewhere a number of universities have adopted a set of principles relating to technology transfer and access to medicines. The Statement of Principles and Strategies for the Equitable Dissemination of Medical Technologies pledges a commitment to effective technology transfer in developing countries through creative use of licensing strategies, judicious application of intellectual property rights, and engagement in research for public health purposes rather than economic gain. These approaches can now be adopted globally for the coronavirus crisis; it is not only about developing countries now.
It is easy to say that everything universities do related to fighting COVID-19 should be put into the public domain, freely available to all, made open-source. Much of it is, and more will be. All of it could be if the governments of the world will put enough resource into delivering every aspect of fighting the pandemic, for years to come. However, there will most likely be a need for risk finance at some stage. Universities should be generous and are being so. And they should share appropriately in the commercial success of others; money universities receive is then re-invested in further research and teaching. TTOs have learned lessons from the Easy Access IP revolution of 2010 – sometimes make it freely available, with a simple agreement to manage the key non-financial issues. It is easy to say the money doesn’t matter; but it always does one way or another. Governments will struggle to boost university research funding to necessary and desirable levels in coming decades; the world will be paying for the economic costs of this crisis as well as the human tragedy.
Universities and their TTOs have the expertise to make research outputs available to those who need them to address the coronavirus crisis for as long as this is necessary. Universities are fulfilling an extremely important role in addressing the coronavirus COVID-19 crisis, and technology transfer has an important part to play in some of this.
1. What are universities doing?
Universities around the world are leading national and international efforts to develop the vaccine that can lead us out of the crisis. They are compiling and providing their substantial laboratory equipment inventories to support national testing programmes, both the tests to know if you have it, and the tests to know if you have had it. They are designing face masks and other forms of personal protective equipment; in many cases they are also using their 3-D printing resources to produce high volumes of these. They are designing ventilators and patient support systems, based on the simplest, most reproducible engineering and design concepts. University academics are frequent commentators on radio and television programmes, often providing the sound, calm voice of reason and fact alongside more excited political and society commentators.
In the US, the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Systems Science and Engineering is leading the world in COVID-19 case and death data collection and presentation. In New York, Columbia scientists have designed simpler, cheaper face shields, and over one million are being manufactured for delivery to NYC and regional hospitals. At Yale, a new drug for lung fibrosis developed a few years ago shows promise for treating certain life-threatening effects of COVID-19, and the research team is rapidly laying the groundwork for clinical trials. The Yale COVID-19 Treatment team has created and released a treatment plan for both severe and non-severe cases of the disease. At MIT, many MIT-affiliated start-ups are working on solutions to various aspects of COVID-19, and MIT is helping to identify opportunities to invest in a solution.
In the UK, researchers at the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London produced the report which finally persuaded the government to get serious about the crisis. Also in London, a team of UCL engineers, UCLH clinicians and industry partners Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains have developed a breathing aid that can help keep COVID-19 patients out of intensive care. All the files necessary to build the UCL-Ventura breathing aid have been released. Cambridge University, together with the Wellcome Sanger Institute, is coordinating the collaboration between expert groups across the UK to analyse the genetic code of COVID-19 samples circulating in the UK giving public health agencies and clinicians a unique, cutting-edge tool to combat the virus. A joint collaboration between AstraZeneca, GSK and the University of Cambridge will set up a new testing laboratory for high throughput screening for Covid-19 testing. It will also explore the use of alternative chemical reagents for test kits in order to help overcome current supply shortages. Oxford University is coordinating the world’s largest randomised clinical trial of potential coronavirus treatments as part of the race to find a treatment. A number of promising treatments are being tested and definitive results on whether the treatments are safe and effective are expected within months and, if positive, they could potentially benefit hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. The Randomised Evaluation of COV-id19 thERapY (RECOVERY) trial is the largest randomised controlled trial of potential COVID-19 treatments in the world with almost 1,000 patients recruited in two weeks.
Well-funded high-quality research universities are a major national and international asset.
2. Beyond the university: university-business collaborations
The outcomes of all these endeavours are being provided as quickly as possible, as openly as possible, and as freely as possible. No-one wants to be seen to be profiteering from the crisis or favouring one group over another. The open, generous approach from university researchers is here it is, do whatever you can.
The development of university-business collaborations in recent decades helps with this. University researchers now have more experience of collaborative endeavours involving business. Researchers have seen colleagues engage successfully with businesses, small and large, and enhance not damage academic careers. These days University people know industry people: the researchers know each other; the research development managers know the business development managers; the CEOs know the Presidents and Vice-Chancellors. Thousands of research collaboration and commercialisation agreements have been negotiated and signed. The mechanics of getting the necessary arrangements in place is well understood.
The fact that university-business interactions have increased massively in recent decades and the mechanics of concluding effective transactions are well-understood will help. Existing university spin-out companies are working on technology solutions in diagnostics, equipment and vaccines. The fact that universities are far improved in helping establish these companies and the volume of early stage investment finance has increased massively are helping.
The relationships always come first. However, the ability to execute effective transactions is extremely important: when does it start, when does it end, who is involved, what is the plan, can we tell people, who is paying for what, what if something goes wrong, who owns the outputs, who can use the outputs etc.
3. Role of TT and TTOs
The university research outputs referred to above will be transferred out from the universities into other organisations (government agencies, charities and for-profit businesses) better placed to develop, design, manufacture and deliver products and services to help people; universities can only do so much.
University technology transfer offices (TTOs) can use their expertise to provide everyone who needs it with access to the rights and freedoms to use what is being developed in the universities. The expertise and experiences developed over recent decades amongst university researchers and within university technology transfer offices will help make this happen fast and effectively.
The purpose of university technology transfer is to transfer university research results from the university out to businesses where the results are developed into new products and services that benefit society. This need not be about money at all; but some of it maybe, and that is ok. University TTOs will be working on providing access to their existing stock of protected intellectual property and also the new solutions that are being created now in direct response to the crisis.
In the US, the TTOs at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Yale have published the COVID-19 Technology Access Framework to enable the adoption of university developed approaches to addressing the coronavirus. The Framework uses ‘rapidly executable non-exclusive royalty-free licenses to intellectual property rights that we have the right to license, for the purpose of making and distributing products to prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19 infection during the pandemic and for a short period thereafter. In return for these royalty-free licenses, we are asking the licensees for a commitment to distribute the resulting products as widely as possible and at a low cost that allows broad accessibility during the term of the license.’
In London, UCL Business has made its e-lucid express licensing platform freely available to any university or researcher in the world that wishes to license under controlled conditions technologies that could help battle, model or better understand the pandemic.
In Oxford, the University and its TTO have adopted revised guidance to accelerate the licensing of relevant intellectual property (IP) for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, to avoid unnecessary delays or missed opportunities to understand, manage and protect against the threat posed. They have issued fresh guidance for access to University of Oxford IP, intended to avoid any unnecessary delay in adoption: expedited access is offered to enable global deployment at scale of associated products and services to address the COVID-19 pandemic; and by default the TTO will offer non-exclusive, royalty-free licences to support free of charge, at-cost or cost + limited margin supply as appropriate, for the duration of the pandemic. Licence terms for supplying downstream (post-pandemic) commercial markets will be the subject of a separate agreement, and the grant during the pandemic does not guarantee it will be granted downstream commercial rights.
University technology transfer offices can file patent applications and then allow the right organisations to use the inventions to develop the products and services to benefit people. The use of patent rights to protect inventions that may be used to address aspects of the Coronavirus crisis will be criticised. Patent rights allow owners to prevent some and allow others to use inventions, over a long period of time. Governments have rights to intervene to make patent rights available in exceptional circumstances such as these, should this be necessary. A sense of shame, embarrassment and reputation management is more likely to lead to patent owners making inventions available without seeking profits to address the crisis; if not, governments can step in.
4. What about the money?
University technology transfer is not about the money. The number one priority has always been to transfer technologies, and other research outputs, for development into products and services that can help people. Making money comes further down the list of priorities; it is reasonable for universities to share in the commercial success of university research outputs.
Allowing other organisations to use your patent rights is not only about money; licensing transactions include many important considerations for all the parties, even if no money is passing hands. The expertise within the TTO will help: liabilities, warranties, indemnities (what if things go wrong?); termination (what if the development partner isn’t up to it, or starts mis-using the invention?); field of use and duration (how do you anticipate the world-order in a few years’ time?). These appear as mostly negative points, however those with experience understand the importance of anticipating things not working out; not least so others can have a go.
The TTO at Oxford University was instrumental in putting in place a consortium of organisations to develop a potential Tuberculosis vaccine candidate a few years ago. The 2009 agreements allowed for a commercial company (Emergent BioSolutions) to develop the technology and seek a return on its risk investment from use in ‘rich’ countries, whilst also supporting the deployment of the vaccine in ‘poor’ countries. Very sadly for global health the vaccine did not make it through the clinical trials; the expertise developed in addressing the challenges will help with this crisis.
In the US and elsewhere a number of universities have adopted a set of principles relating to technology transfer and access to medicines. The Statement of Principles and Strategies for the Equitable Dissemination of Medical Technologies pledges a commitment to effective technology transfer in developing countries through creative use of licensing strategies, judicious application of intellectual property rights, and engagement in research for public health purposes rather than economic gain. These approaches can now be adopted globally for the coronavirus crisis; it is not only about developing countries now.
It is easy to say that everything universities do related to fighting COVID-19 should be put into the public domain, freely available to all, made open-source. Much of it is, and more will be. All of it could be if the governments of the world will put enough resource into delivering every aspect of fighting the pandemic, for years to come. However, there will most likely be a need for risk finance at some stage. Universities should be generous and are being so. And they should share appropriately in the commercial success of others; money universities receive is then re-invested in further research and teaching. TTOs have learned lessons from the Easy Access IP revolution of 2010 – sometimes make it freely available, with a simple agreement to manage the key non-financial issues. It is easy to say the money doesn’t matter; but it always does one way or another. Governments will struggle to boost university research funding to necessary and desirable levels in coming decades; the world will be paying for the economic costs of this crisis as well as the human tragedy.
Universities and their TTOs have the expertise to make research outputs available to those who need them to address the coronavirus crisis for as long as this is necessary. Universities are fulfilling an extremely important role in addressing the coronavirus COVID-19 crisis, and technology transfer has an important part to play in some of this.