On February 6, 2023, Knowledge Ecology International submitted comments to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) regarding the “Prospective Grant of an Exclusive Patent License: Small Cell Lung Cancer Subtyping Using Plasma Cell-Free Nucleosomes” (88 FR 3749). The technology was to be licensed to Yissum Research and Development, the technology transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem located in Jerusalem, Israel. As noted in the Federal Register notice, the explicit purpose of the license is to consolidate the patent rights to Yissum (the co-owners of the rights) for commercial development and marketing, and the exclusive license is also sublicensable. KEI’s comments regarding this license to a foreign entity follow below.
A PDF version is available here: KEI-Comments-NIH-License-Yissum-6Feb2023
Date: February 6, 2023
To: Michaela McCrary, Ph.D.
Licensing and Patenting Manager
NCI Technology Transfer Center
Via: michaela.mccrary@nih.gov
From: James Love, KEI
RE: Prospective Grant of an Exclusive Patent License: Small Cell Lung Cancer Subtyping Using Plasma Cell-Free Nucleosomes (88 FR 3749)
Our comments on the proposed license are as follows.
1. We object to the secrecy regarding the manufacturing waiver. Knowing if there will be a waiver is material to the benefits of granting a license, since the terms of the license are important.
2. We object to the NIH licensing a cancer treatment to any firm that would charge US residents more than other high income countries, and even more so when the firm is foreign.
3. The NIH should exclude from the scope of exclusivity all countries with a per capita income less than 30 percent of the USA.