Working with OTIR

The NCI recognized in recent years that the urgent and complex challenges of cancer combined with the large-scale requisites of post-genomic research, demand close collaboration among the academic, public, and private sectors. To encourage and facilitate such collaboration both conceptually and pragmatically — NCI has consistently involved small and large organizations in the entire innovation continuum from Discovery to Development to Delivery.

Through the Office of Technology and Industrial Relations, NCI is proactively working with the private sector in the following ways:

• Sharing Information. As NCI identifies areas of high potential for the research enterprise, it gathers data and disparate viewpoints, publishing and disseminating such knowledge through a variety of communication vehicles to build a broad consensus.
• Ensuring a Role for Industry. Large-scale technology initiatives cannot succeed without the participation of industry — to innovate and then to adopt new standards and best practices — and over time to apply those technologies to the expeditious development of new diagnostics and therapeutics for patient care. All NCI’s technology initiatives, therefore, have well-defined interfaces with the private sector to facilitate translational medicine.
• Maintaining Transparency and Ethical Standards. NCI has strived to ensure that all interactions with the private sector are handled appropriately, with respect to equal opportunity, competitive fairness, and opportunity for public input. Whenever possible, OTIR establishes advisory boards with the broadest representation of expertise and viewpoints from across the cancer community.