Home > IP Topics Index > Putting Intellectual Property to Work: Experiences from Around the World > How Public–Private Partnerships Handle Intellectual Property: The PATH Experience > Editor's Summary, Implications and Best Practices

This chapter offers three case studies that examine public-private partnerships (PPPs), or perhaps more accurately product-development partnerships (PDPs) and IP management. Developed by PATH, an international, nonprofit health organization that creates sustainable, culturally specific health solutions for the poor, these PDPs demonstrate both the effectiveness of collaboration between the public and private sectors and the importance of IP management for such efforts. Indeed, PATH incorporates IP considerations as a fundamental part of the PDP process. It seeks to manage intellectual property strategically to avoid or quickly overcome any IP-related roadblocks.

To ensure that the products a PDP develops are available, accessible, and affordable to developing countries, PATH begins its partnership considerations by performing a due diligence investigation that examines a potential partner’s resources and financial abilities (a standard practice in private industry). Part of this investigation includes an IP assessment. PATH reviews the existing and competing IP rights of all partners, negotiates the exact terms of ownership for all intellectual property generated over the course of the project, agrees on what happens if the partnership terminates before the project’s completion, and specifies responsibilities for protecting project intellectual property generated by partners and PATH. After a technology is developed, intellectual property is managed in the context of a commercialization strategy and a licensing plan.

The challenges and successes of this process are detailed in this chapter’s three case studies. The first examines the development of cervical cancer diagnostics suitable for use in developing countries. The second considers the novel approaches used to develop an affordable, effective group A meningococcal vaccine for Africa’s “meningitis belt.” In this instance, the consortium that PATH put together provides a new model for vaccine development: a key raw material came from one source, the technology from another, and the final scale-up for production from another. Moreover, it included a north-to-south transfer of technology and capacity. The final case study explores how PATH has promoted vaccine stabilization technologies, a crucial link for ensuring the availability of standard vaccines to children in developing countries. By investigating the intellectual property related to such technologies, PATH has identified a portfolio of potential options that it is currently monitoring to determine the best approach.

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

• Public-private partnerships (PPPs) and product-development partnerships (PDPs) can offer novel solutions for accessing essential innovations in health and agriculture. Therefore, it is important to implement policies, promote legislation and encourage activities that foster an environment where PDPs can flourish.

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

• Be open-minded when considering research partners; a product-development partnership (PDP) might be the most effective way to develop a new drug, vaccine or diagnostic.
• Working with a PDP can be considered an institutional strategy for accelerating access to essential innovations in health and agriculture. Developing-country public-sector institutions can play critical roles in PDPs. However, to be effective in these roles, awareness of, knowledge about and capability in best practices in IP management are fundamental, that is, good management of all intellectual property involved, regardless of who is the owner.

For Scientists

• Work with your technology transfer office to identify and eliminate IP related roadblocks.

For Technology Transfer Officers

• An IP assessment, including a due diligence investigation and review of competing IP, is critical to any successful public-private partnership.
• Be creative and flexible in developing new partnership models; it might be most effective to use materials, technology and production services from wholly different sources which may require complex—but rewarding—agreements.
• PATH acts as a value-added intermediary between industry and the public sector. As part of an institutional networking strategy, build relationships with organizations, such as PATH, that can then connect your institution to highly dynamic, valuable opportunities for product development.
• In a product-development partnership (PDP), IP is managed to advance specific products through subsequent stages of development and commercialization leading to use in developing countries. The technology transfer office of your institution can play a lead role in this process.
• In delivering health innovations to developing countries, PATH negotiates mutually beneficial solutions for both the public and private sectors, balancing risks and benefits. As a developing-country public-sector institution, it is important to build the level of IP capacity necessary to participate in PATH’s, and similar organization’s, PDPs.