Technology Licensing to Non-Traditional Partners: Non-Profit Health Product Development Organizations for Better Global Health

The commercialization of technologies arising from university research depends on the ability of technology managers to find and contract with appropriate development partners. Substantial investment is required to bring new health-science technologies to market, and when such technologies appear to have limited commercial markets it can be difficult for technology managers to find any licensee willing to invest research and development dollars. Developments in the area of neglected diseases may open up new opportunities for licensing. Over the past decade, The Rockefeller Foundation and other donors have provided social venture capital to launch a number of non-profit ‘companies’ that have collectively raised more than $1 billion from philanthropic and government donors to support product development. These public–private partnerships (PPPs) support the development of drugs, vaccines and diagnostics to address diseases that predominantly afflict the poor, such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Today there are nearly a dozen such PPPs following business models, managing portfolios of candidate products (often in-licensed from academia), negotiating in-kind support from the private sector or engaging industry through contract research and development, and using intellectual property in creative ways to harness private-sector know-how while ensuring affordability and access. Academic research institutions have many functions, including those of educating the next generation of scientists, advancing and sharing knowledge and, perhaps, even improving the world. Any technology manager who ever imagined there might be priorities beyond income generation should consider these non-traditional partners.