DENVER--()--MPEG LA announced today that Librassay®, a landmark collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other leading healthcare innovators (listed below), is now providing one-stop worldwide access to diagnostic discoveries for personalized medicine.
“Uncertainties surrounding access to patented technologies have imperiled healthcare advances,” said Larry Horn, MPEG LA President and CEO. “Just as MPEG LA’s origination of patent pools provided a market-based solution for accessing consumer electronics, video and information technologies, now MPEG LA’s Librassay® introduces a similar solution to the healthcare market with the potential for profound cost savings and quality of life benefits. We applaud the pioneering foresight and efforts of the world’s leading research institutions demonstrating a commitment to their understanding that making world class medical technology widely available is as important as inventing it.”
“The NIH’s policy is to disseminate its technologies as broadly as possible to promote commercialization and improve public health,” stated Mark Rohrbaugh, Director of the NIH Office of Technology Transfer. “This agreement promotes our policy by permitting MPEG LA and Librassay® to pool patented technologies contributed by NIH with complementary technologies from other sources, and to grant non-exclusive, commercial licenses from the pool for in vitro diagnostics and personalized medicine.”
“Before Librassay®, obtaining licenses to medical diagnostic inventions was an ordeal,” added Kristin Neuman, Librassay® Executive Director. “Now Librassay® offers one place where diagnostic developers and service providers can obtain assured and affordable access to patent rights, and patent holders have the opportunity for wider adoption of their technologies in combination with others, reasonable compensation for their research investments and the incentive to invest more.”
Initial contributors to Librassay® include
- Johns Hopkins University
- Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
- Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
- National Institutes of Health
- Partners HealthCare
- The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
- The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
- University of California, San Francisco
Starting with some 400 patents, Librassay® makes worldwide medical diagnostic patent rights from the world’s leading research institutions available to everyone through a one-stop license. Librassay® is expected to be of particular benefit in connection with emerging multiplexed diagnostic tests for disease and other health conditions, including whole genome sequencing, for which patent rights belonging to many different parties may be needed.
MPEG LA welcomes other patent holders to join Librassay®. For information, please go to LicensorInfo-Librassay@mpegla.com.
To access the on-line Librassay® store, or request a copy of the Librassay® Patent Portfolio License, please go to www.librassay.com.
MPEG LA, LLC
MPEG LA is the world’s leading independent provider of patent licenses offering wide access to important technologies. MPEG LA developed modern day patent pools. By assisting users with implementation of their technology choices, MPEG LA offers licensing solutions that create opportunities for wide adoption and fuel innovation. MPEG LA’s original license for digital video compression helped produce the most widely employed standard in consumer electronics history. It has become the template for addressing patent thickets. Today MPEG LA manages licensing programs consisting of 6000 patents in 74 countries with 159 licensors and some 5000 licensees. For more information, please refer to http://www.mpegla.com.
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University (JHU), founded in Baltimore in 1876 by philanthropist Johns Hopkins, was America’s first research university and today is a leading center for higher education and research. The National Science Foundation has ranked JHU number one among U.S. academic institutions in total science, medical and engineering research and development spending for 32 consecutive years. To date, 36 Nobel Prize winners have been affiliated with JHU, and the university's research is among the most cited in the world.
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
The Ludwig Institute is an international non-profit organization committed to improving the understanding and control of cancer through integrated laboratory and clinical discovery. Leveraging its worldwide network of investigators and the ability to sponsor and conduct its own clinical trials, the Institute is actively engaged in translating its discoveries into applications for patient benefit. Since its establishment in 1971, the Institute has expended more than $1.5 billion on cancer research.
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center is the world’s oldest and largest private institution devoted to prevention, patient care, research, and education in cancer. Our scientists and clinicians generate innovative approaches to better understand, diagnose, and treat cancer. Our specialists are leaders in biomedical research and in translating the latest research to advance the standard of cancer care worldwide. For more information, go to www.mskcc.org.
National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
Partners HealthCare
Partners HealthCare is an integrated health care system, founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital that offers patients a continuum of coordinated and high-quality care. In addition to its two academic medical centers, the Partners system includes community and specialty hospitals, a physician network, community health centers, home health and long-term care services, and other health care entities. Partners HealthCare is committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. Partners is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations and is a principal teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Partners HealthCare is a non-profit organization.
The University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, is one of America’s premier research and teaching universities. As a member of the Ivy League, Penn has a proud history of academic excellence with 12 schools that offer undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees to more than 21,000 students. With 165 research centers and institutes, research is a substantial and esteemed enterprise at Penn supported by a research budget approaching $1B annually. In particular, the Perelman School of Medicine is consistently ranked among the top institutions listed in U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with ~$500 million awarded in the last fiscal year. For more information, visit www.upenn.edu.
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. As the birthplace of biotechnology and the largest public recipient of funding from the National Institutes of Health, UCSF is dedicated to translating the nation’s investment in biomedical research into direct public benefit. Central to that effort are the more than 1,700 active inventions and 450 intellectual property licenses under management by the UCSF office of Innovation, Technology and Alliances. More than 97 products are currently being sold based on UCSF technology, with 13 more in clinical development. For more information, visit www.ucsf.edu.
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