# Secrecy and intellectual property block collaboration

Source: https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-ip-collaboration/  
OnCo record `b-ip-collaboration` (Bottleneck). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Companies with complementary drugs rarely test them together, and data that could answer questions stays locked up.

## Summary

The combinations with the strongest biological rationale in oncology often pair agents owned by different companies, and the negotiation over supply, data rights, liability and eventual pricing is slow enough that most such combinations are never tested; where they are, it is usually because one party has a checkpoint inhibitor to defend. Individual patient data from completed trials, the raw material for meta-analysis, biomarker discovery and honest re-analysis, are shared rarely and slowly despite journal and funder policies: in one audit, data could actually be obtained for about 1% of trials with sharing statements. Academic competition adds its own secrecy, delaying publication of negative and confirmatory results. Pre-competitive consortia, trusted data-sharing platforms, standardised combination agreements and public sponsors of cross-company trials are the working models; they cover a small fraction of the field.

## Fields

- Kind: Bottleneck
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Stage: funding-incentives
- Severity: major
- Metrics: Trials with ICMJE data-sharing statements whose individual participant data could be obtained by requesters: 6 of 487 (about 1%) (Danchev et al., JAMA Network Open 2021); Clinical trials of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors registered by 2021, mostly combinations and mostly within single-sponsor portfolios: 5,683 trials (Upadhaya et al., Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 2022)
- Causes: Cross-company combination trials require negotiation of supply, data ownership, liability and future pricing between competitors.; Individual patient data are treated as proprietary assets and shared only under restrictive agreements.; Journal and funder data-sharing policies are rarely enforced.; Academic credit depends on priority and exclusivity of data.; Antitrust and confidentiality concerns discourage pre-competitive discussion of pipelines.

## Sources

- Danchev et al., Evaluation of data sharing after implementation of the ICMJE data sharing statement requirement (JAMA Netw Open 2021): https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.33972
- Project Data Sphere: https://www.projectdatasphere.org/
- Vivli: https://vivli.org/
- Structural Genomics Consortium: https://www.thesgc.org/

## Connected records

- collections: [AACR Project GENIE](https://onco.cc/collections/genie/), [ClinicalTrials.gov](https://onco.cc/collections/clinicaltrials-gov/), [Open Targets Platform](https://onco.cc/collections/open-targets/), [PubMed & Europe PMC](https://onco.cc/collections/pubmed-europepmc/)
- ideas: [A common consent and material transfer template for tumour biobanks](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-data-common-biobank-consent-mta/), [A commons for leftover trial biospecimens with standard access for approved research](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-trial-biospecimen-commons/), [A federated learning consortium of cancer centres that jointly own the models](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-federated-learning-consortium/), [A global ledger of negative results and failed compounds with mandatory deposition](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-negative-results-ledger/), [A legal right to obtain marketed cancer drugs at cost for combination trials](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-compulsory-combination-access/), [A neutral platform trial for radiotherapy plus immunotherapy combinations](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-rt-io-platform/), [A patent pool for combination method-of-use claims](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr2-combination-patent-pool/), [A permanent neutral non-profit sponsor for multi-company platform trials](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-neutral-platform-sponsor/), [A pre-competitive consortium to train a shared multimodal cancer foundation model](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-data-precompetitive-cancer-foundation-model/), [A pre-competitive consortium to validate or kill academic targets before licensing](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-target-validation-consortium/), [A precompetitive consortium for the twenty hardest cancer targets](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-bio1-undruggable-open-consortium/), [A public registry of stalled academic assets and shelved company compounds](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-stalled-asset-registry/), [A publicly held library of investigational drugs available for academic combination trials](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr2-public-combination-formulary/), [A regulator-endorsed standard contract for inter-company combination trials](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-standard-combination-agreement/), [A shared compound library that rare cancer researchers can actually use](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-bio2-shared-compound-access-pool/), [A shared library of pooled control arms to shrink and speed future trials](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-control-arm-commons/), [A single oncology trial data trust with mandatory deposit within eighteen months](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-trial-data-trust/), [A standard cross-company combination agreement that takes weeks, not years, to sign](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr2-combination-template-agreement/), [A universal material transfer agreement with a thirty-day default](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-universal-mta-fast-lane/), [An antitrust safe harbour for cross-company combination trials and data pooling](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-antitrust-safe-harbour/), [An oncology patent pool for combination trials across companies](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-combination-patent-pool/), [An open degrader consortium against every undruggable driver transcription factor](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-open-degrader-consortium/), [An open engineering platform for academic ADCs and bispecifics](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-academic-adc-bispecific-platform/), [An open-science consortium on the undruggable drivers, open until a candidate](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-precompetitive-undruggable-consortium/), [Automatic offer of shelved cancer assets to non-profits after two years](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-shelved-asset-escrow/), [Competing sponsors share one control arm in the same indication](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr1-shared-control-arms-across-sponsors/), [Enforce individual participant data sharing as a condition of publication and funding](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-data-ipd-deposit-enforcement/), [Every approved cancer drug ships with a public combination-readiness data pack](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr2-combo-readiness-dossier/), [Funder bonuses for releasing results and data within six months, negatives included](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-open-results-bonus/), [Limit secondary patents and pay-for-delay so cancer generics arrive on time](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-reg-secondary-patent-thicket-limits/), [Open-source drug discovery to clinical proof of concept for neglected cancers](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-moon-open-source-oncology-drug-discovery/), [Patient-held portable consent for reusing samples and data across studies](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-portable-patient-consent/), [Scoop protection and co-publication norms to reduce academic secrecy](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-scoop-protection-policy/), [Screen glue-like compounds against every cancer cell line and publish it](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-bio1-glue-degrader-atlas/), [University licences with royalties indexed to benefit and global access](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-global-access-licensing-royalties/), [Voluntary licences and price caps for patented cancer drugs in low-income countries](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-cost-voluntary-licensing-oncology/)
- companies: [Breast International Group (BIG)](https://onco.cc/companies/big/), [Cancer Commons](https://onco.cc/companies/cancer-commons/), [ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group](https://onco.cc/companies/ecog-acrin/), [EORTC](https://onco.cc/companies/curie-nki-eortc/), [German Breast Group (GBG)](https://onco.cc/companies/gbg/), [Natco Pharma](https://onco.cc/companies/natco/), [Patient Data Vault (data-vault.health)](https://onco.cc/companies/patient-data-vault/)
- institutions: [American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)](https://onco.cc/institutions/aacr/), [Cancer Research UK](https://onco.cc/institutions/cruk/), [National Cancer Institute (NIH)](https://onco.cc/institutions/nci/), [Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy](https://onco.cc/institutions/parker-institute/)
- key papers: [Evaluation of Data Sharing After Implementation of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Data Sharing Statement Requirement](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-danchev-jama-netw-open/)
- people: [Sanford I. Weill](https://onco.cc/people/sanford-weill/), [Sean Parker](https://onco.cc/people/sean-parker/), [Sherry Lansing](https://onco.cc/people/sherry-lansing/)
- terms: [Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics (2013)](https://onco.cc/terms/myriad-ruling/), [Nexavar compulsory licence (India, 2012)](https://onco.cc/terms/nexavar-compulsory-licence/), [Novartis v. Union of India (Glivec, 2013)](https://onco.cc/terms/novartis-glivec-ruling/), [TRIPS Agreement and the Doha Declaration](https://onco.cc/terms/trips-doha/)
- roadmaps: [Drug discovery roadmap: screening in mice → maps of dependency → designing in silico](https://onco.cc/roadmaps/drug-discovery-roadmap/)

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