Science Policy’s New TRICKS
In the early 1990s, Charles Mistretta, supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (Korosec, Frayne, Grist, & Mistretta, 1996), was working on a technology that promised to replace invasive angiography for the diagnosis of painful conditions such as peripheral vascular disease. The Time-Resolved Imaging of Contrast KineticS, or TRICKSTM was patented in 1996 by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and licensed to GE Healthcare, who brought it to market in 2003 (Association of University Technology Managers, 2006).
TRICKS static image of the head.
Source: https://www2.gehealthcare.com/
Yet, had TRICKS been developed 25 years earlier, it might not have been commercialized. The relatively smooth transition from laboratory to clinic was in part due to legislation that was pioneered by the NIH.
In the 1970s, US policy mandated that the government owned any invention developed with federal funds. However, the belief was starting to emerge that this policy was stifling commercialization of new technologies. The issue became particularly salient after the British firm EMI sold its first CT scanners even though a solid foundation for the technology had been laid in the United States (Kevles, 1997). The National Institutes of Health (NIH) had already taken notice of its poor commercialization record and realized that the public was not benefitting from the basic scientific discoveries for which it had paid. In 1968, the NIH initiated the Institutional Patent Agreement (IPA), giving participating research institutions the right to patent and license inventions developed in their laboratories using federal funds. This program was seen as so successful that it was adopted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1973 and extended to all federal agencies in 1980 with the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act (Bremer, Allen, & Latker, 2009).
Patenting by Carnegie research universities, by IPA status. (Click to expand.) Source: (Bremer, Allen, & Latker, 2009, p. 7).
Combined with the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 and the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986, the foundation had been laid for new medical imaging devices to transition smoothly from universities to private industry, with compensation paid to the original researchers.
Although the true impact of the technology transfer programs is far from certain, circumstantial evidence suggests that they served to spur private investment in research and development (R&D). Though already on an upward trend, industrial investment in technology surpassed that of the government just as the Bayh-Dole Act was being signed. Private investment has continued to show steady gains ever since. In 2008, industry was responsible for about 84% of all development investments and 61% of applied research (National Science Foundation, 2010).
Total R&D investment is dominated by private firms. Source: National Science Foundation, 2010.
The majority of research dollars go to fund technological development; basic and applied research collectively make up only 40% of the US portfolio. Source: National Science Foundation, 2010.
References
Association of University Technology Managers. (2006). Technology Transfer Stories: 25 Innovations that Changed the World: the Better World Report. Northbrook, IL. Retrieved February 18, 2011, from http://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/AUTM_US/A060315S.pdf.>
Bremer, H., Allen, J., & Latker, N. J. (2009). The Bayh-Dole Act and Revisionism Redux. Life Sciences Law & Industry Report, 3(17), 1-14. doi: 10.1080/09654310802513864.
Kevles, B. H. (1997). Naked to the bone: Medical imaging in the twentieth century. Naked to the bone Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century. New Brunswick, NJ: Addison-Wesley.
Korosec, F. R., Frayne, R., Grist, T. M., & Mistretta, C. A. (1996). Time-resolved contrast-enhanced 3D MR angiography. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 36(3), 345–351. Wiley Online Library. Retrieved February 18, 2011, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mrm.1910360304/abstract.>
National Science Foundation. (2010, March). National Patterns of R&D Resources: 2008. Retrieved February 24, 2011, from http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf10314/content.cfm?pub_id=4000&id=2.

