Automatic offer of shelved cancer assets to non-profits after two years
When a company stops developing a cancer drug for business reasons, the rights and data would automatically be offered to charities and universities on set terms after two years, so promising compounds do not disappear.
A legal or funder-imposed condition (for example on drugs that received public research funding, orphan designation or tax credits) that oncology assets discontinued for non-safety reasons and not actively developed for two years must be offered for licence to qualified non-profit or academic developers on pre-set terms (non-exclusive for research, exclusive for defined rare indications, modest royalties on commercialisation). Data packages and remaining drug supply are included. Companies retain rights to resume. This complements the stalled-asset registry by creating a duty, not just a listing.
- Secrecy and intellectual property block collaboration · Companies with complementary drugs rarely test them together, and data that could answer questions stays locked up.
- The valley of death between lab and product · Most academic discoveries die before anyone tests them in people because nobody funds the middle step.
- Rare and paediatric cancers without markets · Taken together rare cancers are a fifth of all cancers, but each one alone is too small for a company to invest in.