NIH Announces New Resource for Advancing Innovative
Technologies Toward Commercialization
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched today a new Web-based
resource called NIH Pipeline to Partnerships (P2P), aimed at furthering
the development of NIH’s licensed technologies and technologies
funded through the NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.
This new P2P initiative, developed jointly between the NIH Office
of Technology Transfer (OTT) and the NIH SBIR and STTR Program
Office, provides a virtual space where NIH licensees and NIH SBIR/STTR
awardees can showcase their technologies and product development
for an audience of potential strategic partners, investors, and
licensees.
NIH is continually developing ways to help new biomedical technologies
succeed and foster their development and entry into the marketplace.
“In the last decade, many successful biomedical products have
come from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that licensed
early-stage technologies from NIH,” said Mark Rohrbaugh, Ph.D.,
J.D., Director of the NIH Technology Transfer Office. “Faced with
less demand for early-stage technologies, this pipeline provides
an avenue for potential partners to find NIH licensees along the
spectrum of product development to share costs, infrastructure,
and expertise as the research and development progresses to later
stage clinical trials.”
Health-related products that grew out of this process include
Velcade® (bortezomib), a treatment for multiple myeloma, and
Synagis® (palivizumab), a treatment to help prevent Respiratory
Syncytial Virus (RSV) infection in babies and young children.
This exciting NIH P2P initiative can also help NIH SBIR/STTR awardees
that face similar challenges in moving their innovations along
the development pipeline. “These small companies simply can’t go
it alone,” said Jo Anne Goodnight, Coordinator of NIH’s SBIR/STTR
programs. “Given the expensive pre-clinical and clinical studies
necessary to bring novel products to the market and the patient,
many of these projects need additional financing, licensing deals,
or strategic partnerships. We see the P2P database as an important
resource to help small businesses make a successful leap from discovery
to commercialization of products resulting from innovative biomedical
and behavioral research.”
A pipeline of technologies available for partnering is now available
on the OTT Web site (www.ott.nih.gov/P2P)
as an index searchable by category of technology and stage of development.
Once a technology of interest is identified, the interested party
is directed to the licensee/awardee developing the technology.
All submissions to the site by the licensees and grantees will
be voluntary. Although NIH will approve all postings, NIH will
not be involved directly in the partnering activities.
By providing this resource, NIH is advancing its mission to further
the development of its own licensed technologies or those for which
it has provided SBIR/STTR funding. This Web site provides a new
avenue by which NIH can facilitate more rapid development of products
for the benefit of public health.
The Office of the Director, the central office at NIH, is responsible
for setting policy for NIH, which includes 27 Institutes and Centers.
This involves planning, managing, and coordinating the programs
and activities of all NIH components. The Office of the Director
also includes program offices which are responsible for stimulating
specific areas of research throughout NIH. Additional information
is available at http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) The Nation's
Medical Research Agency is comprised of 27 Institutes
and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health
and Human Services. It is the primary Federal agency for conducting
and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research,
and investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common
and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs,
visit www.nih.gov. |