Premium
Patents and Innovation in Cancer Therapeutics: Lessons from CellPro
Author(s) -
BarShalom Avital,
CookDeegan Robert
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
the milbank quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1468-0009
pISSN - 0887-378X
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0009.00027
Subject(s) - intellectual property , incentive , technology transfer , political science , business , management , medicine , law , economics , international trade , microeconomics
H ow scientific knowledge is translated into diagnostic and therapeutic tools is important to patients with dread diseases as well as to regulators and policymakers. Patents play a crucial role in that process. Indeed, concern that the fruits of federally funded research would languish without commercial application led to the passage of the Bayh‐Dole Act (PL 96‐517), which reinforced incentives to patent the results of inventions arising from federally funded research (Eisenberg 1996). Subsequently, rates of patenting among U.S. academic institutions have increased (Henderson, Jaffe, and Trajtenberg 1988). A recent survey by the Association of University Technology Managers counted 20,968 licenses and options from 175 academic institutions and 6,375 patent applications filed in fiscal year 2000 (Pressman 2002). Analysis suggests that the number of academic patents was already rising when the Bayh‐Dole Act was passed in 1980 (Mowery et al. 2001), but it is clear that the act reinforced the patenting norm in research universities and mandated a technology transfer infrastructure at those universities that had not yet established a technology licensing office. This article discusses the interaction between intellectual property and cancer treatment. CellPro developed a stem cell separation technology based on research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. A patent with broad claims to bone marrow stem cell antibodies had been awarded to Johns Hopkins University and licensed to Baxter Healthcare under the 1980 Bayh‐Dole Act to promote commercial use of inventions from federally funded research. CellPro got FDA approval more than two years before Baxter but lost patent infringement litigation. NIH elected not to compel Hopkins to license its patents to CellPro. CellPro went out of business, selling its technology to its competitor. Decisions at both firms and university licensing offices, and policies at the Patent and Trademark Office, NIH, and the courts influenced the outcome.