Posted by Andy Walker on June 03, 1999 at 11:19:09:
Greetings,
Excerpts of some news of interest from the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Andy
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NIH Draft Urges Researchers Not to Sign Restrictive Deals With Companies
By JEFFREY BRAINARD
Washington-- The National Institutes of Health has issued draft guidelines discouraging researchers from making pacts with companies for access to biomedical-research tools if those deals restrict dissemination of the resulting scientific findings.
The agency last month invited public comment on the proposed guidelines, which followed many of the recommendations made last year by an advisory committee to the N.I.H. director, Harold E. Varmus. That panel found that deals had interfered with the progress of some scientific projects and the public release of useful scientific results.
University-based scientists rely on companies to supply a range of items used in research, including software, chemicals, living cells, and animals. Last year's report described widespread frustration among university researchers about the promises universities had made to companies for use of those tools.
The panel found that companies at times gained exclusive ownership of discoveries resulting from use of their tools. They also restricted the publishing of results and were viewed as seeking unreasonable prices for the tools. The deals were negotiated in a time-consuming, case-by-case fashion that university officials said posed a drag on their resources. Because the N.I.H. is a major supporter of basic biomedical research, the agency has an interest in solving such problems, the report noted.
The new draft guidelines stop short of dictating exactly how users of research tools should negotiate agreements to acquire them, and propose no sanctions for anyone who refuses to follow the guidelines. Instead, the draft suggests general principles that any recipient of N.I.H. financing should follow.
The guidelines also ask recipients of N.I.H. financing not to give companies licenses to control discoveries arising from the use of their tools. (Exceptions exist.)
In addition, the draft recommendations discourage universities from agreeing to delay publishing results for longer than 30 days.
Comments on the draft guidelines are due by August 23 to the N.I.H.'s Office of Technology Transfer. The guidelines may be viewed on line at http://www.nih.gov/od/ott/RTguide.htm and the advisory panel's report is on line at http://www.nih.gov/news/researchtools/index.htm