Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Joins National Covid-19 Technology Access Framework

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Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) has joined the COVID-19 Technology Access Framework, a multi-site effort aimed at accelerating the production of essential health-related technologies that will help prevent, diagnose, and treat infections during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 Technology Access Framework will enable and incentivize the most broad and equitable access to new technology for the greatest public benefit and impact.

Established by experts from Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University, the framework establishes a model that will help facilitate the licensing transfers by minimizing any associated administrative burdens and promoting collaborative relationships with innovators.

“Memorial Sloan Kettering is proud to partner in the COVID-19 Technology Access Framework,” said Greg Raskin MD, Vice President of MSK’s Office of Technology Development & Licensing.  “Any MSK invention that has the potential to impact patient care during this pandemic should have the greatest chance of being developed without any delay.”

Intellectual property agreements outlined in the Framework provide rapid, executable, non-exclusive, royalty-free licenses for most types of technologies during the global COVID-19 pandemic and for a short period of time afterward. Involved parties agree that by commercializing innovations, the resulting product will be distributed as widely as possible and at a low cost to allow for broad accessibility.

COVID-19 Technology Access Framework

We strongly believe that while intellectual property rights can often serve to incentivize the creation of new products, such rights should not become a barrier to addressing widespread, urgent and essential health-related needs. To address the global COVID-19 pandemic, we are each implementing technology transfer strategies to allow for and incentivize rapid utilization of our available technologies that may be useful for preventing, diagnosing and treating COVID-19 infection during the pandemic.

To achieve our common goal, we each individually commit to the following guidelines:

  1. We are committed to implementing COVID-19 patenting and licensing strategies that are consistent with our goal of facilitating rapid global access. For most types of technologies, this includes the use of rapidly executable non-exclusive royalty-free licenses to intellectual property rights that we have the right to license, for the purpose of making and distributing products to prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19 infection during the pandemic and for a short period thereafter.  In return for these royalty-free licenses, we are asking the licensees for a commitment to distribute the resulting products as widely as possible and at a low cost that allows broad accessibility during the term of the license.
  2. We are committed to making vigorous efforts to achieve alignment among all stakeholders in our intellectual property, including research sponsors, to facilitate broad and rapid access to technologies that have been requested to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
  3. We are committed to making any technology transfer transactions related to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic our first priority, and to minimizing any associated administrative burdens.