Home > Topics > Dealmaking and Marketing Technology to Product-Development Partners > Product Development and IP Strategies for Global Health Product Development Partnerships > Editor's Summary, Implications and Best Practices

This chapter discusses one of the core themes of this Handbook, how public sector and non-profit efforts can utilize intellectual property to achieve their goals in serving society. To illustrate this important point, the chapter focuses on pioneering organizations: product development partnership (PDPs) and their innovative IP strategies. PDPs, in essence, facilitate and accelerate the flow of public and philanthropic investment through the innovation pipeline, to a far greater extent than has been, traditionally, typical of universities alone. Such investments are made in a new product technology to advance it through the stages of development. This happens within the overall marketplace for technologies and intellectual property, by selectively targeting projects, just as biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies do, based upon their risk-reward profile. In this case, the measure of “reward” is not returns to the organization, but is the overall social welfare impact that the new drug or vaccine might have.

With a two-pronged approach of product specialization and taking advantage of the efficiencies of the larger marketplace for technologies, PDPs systematically mobilize and strategically use intellectual property. There are certain similarities between PDPs and biotechnology companies. Both occupy a similar niche in the innovation pipeline. They also share many IP goals. They both seek to maintain an appropriate mix of access and exclusivity to innovations, in order to have sufficient freedom to operate and sufficient bargaining chips to serve the overall strategy of their organization. There are also similarities between the IP strategies of PDPs and public research institutions. Both PDPs and public research institutions use intellectual property not to protect their market share, but for other purposes: to entice or leverage private investment, enhance access to other intellectual property, build partnerships, or cultivate political goodwill to advance their missions.

Just as there are several business models used by the biotechnology industry, so there are several business models used by PDPs. The business model that a PDP chooses will depend upon the technologies it deals with, the stage of development of those technologies, and the nature of the market. One factor that determines which kind of business model a PDP will use is whether or not the product being developed is potentially profitable and can therefore attract the interest of for-profit companies. An AIDS vaccine is potentially profitable; a malaria vaccine is not.

Key Implications and Best Practices

Given that IP management is heavily context specific, these Key Implications and Best Practices are intended as starting points to be adapted to specific needs and circumstances.

For Government Policymakers

• Product development partnerships (PDPs) facilitate and accelerate the flow of public and philanthropic investment through the innovation pipeline. The measure of success is not maximum profit but maximum social benefit.

For Senior Management (university president, R&D manager, etc)

• Joining PDPs is one way to use your intellectual property efficiently.
• PDPs can help you advance the social mission of your institution. They may help you to achieve more philanthropic goals than you could on your own.
• Joining a PDP may mean that your institution will need to have more expertise in business, intellectual property, and technology transfer.

For Scientists

• Interesting scientific collaborations are available through PDPs seeking to solve major social problems through product development. In particular, such collaborations are quite attractive to funding sources because of the greater promise they have for delivering measurable impacts.
• By connecting your research activities to a PDP, you can realize greater opportunities, such as seeing your research move from basic science to applied commercialization with tangible benefits to society. Also, working within the context of a PDP can create new opportunities for fruitful collaboration, which can advance your program.

For Technology Transfer Officers

• The actual IP strategies and agreements one needs to pursue with a PDP are essentially the same as with companies. Although there may be some alterations of terms and/or provisions.
• PDPs can create products for a different market than the one in which they are currently being sold, or use a technology that is already being developed for a major commercial market for specific application in a different (non-major) market sector. Working with a commercial partner within the PDP to advance the development of an innovative health or agricultural product can thereby benefit all partners, as well as the greater public.
• If a licensee abandons a drug lead or pharmaceutical compound because it may not be lucrative, a PDP might be interested in taking it on. PDPs do some of their most valuable work in finding treatments for the “neglected” diseases of third-world countries.
• Working in a PDP will require significant cross disciplinary sophistication, integrating business, technological, intellectual property, and administrative expertise. But, the potential outcomes justify the necessary investments in human and institutional capacity building.