NIH Gets Tough On Technology Transfer

The director of the Office of Technology Transfer at the US National Institutes of Health has stressed that the OTT will be negotiating "very tough agreements" with companies on licensing agreements, and that she is currently restructuring the Office to put in "a very strong monitoring arm" to look after these agreements.

Maria Freire said that the milestones which the Office would be using to monitor licensing agreements would cover not only royalties and economics, but also, in cases where this is appropriate, public access. Under the reorganization, she added, two employees will be working full-time on monitoring license agreements, with one in the area of cellular growth and regulation and the other in disease management.