Academic and Medical Research Collaborations
We assist clients who make traditional academic grants as well as those involved in research collaborations between tax-exempt organizations and for-profit entities. For example, we help our medical research organization clients establish multi-institution consortia focused on developing solutions for various conditions, such as cancer immunotherapy, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, immunology, neurometabolomics, Type 1 diabetes, neurofibromatosis, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, and other disease- or cause-specific areas. These multiparty collaborations benefit from our deep and unique understanding of university policies regarding patents, publications, licensing and similar matters. This experience is crucial for structuring and operating the consortia and in the spin-out of commercial entities.
Working alongside our colleagues across Arnold & Porter, we represent medical research and other tax-exempt clients across the full spectrum of funding for research and development. This includes support for basic research, clinical trials, and translational research. We also assist in spinning-out companies that are based on funded intellectual property as well as obtaining financing and providing ongoing support to these spin-out companies as they work to commercialize products, devices, and technologies developed from such intellectual property.
We have a successful track record of helping our nonprofit clients move the needle on medical research so that they can effectively provide patients with life-saving treatments.
How We Can Help
- Developing IP and commercialization policies to apply to funded research
- Establishing research affiliations with universities and other research institutions
- Creating joint ventures with for-profit pharmaceutical and life science companies
- Advising on how to structure and establish technology transfer practices and procedures and preparing the related documents, including invention disclosure forms, non-disclosure agreements, option agreements, and license agreements
- Preparing conflict of interest policies to ensure that outside professional activities and financial dealings of employees and board members do not interfere with their commitment of time and intellectual energy to the organization
- Maintaining the integrity and transparency of financial relationships between organization directors, employees, and outside entities by implementing established policies
- Advising philanthropic and institutional clients on their investments to bring new technologies or breakthrough treatments to market
- Developing data sharing policies and practices that protect the patentability of IP while enabling grantees to learn from and build upon each other’s work
- Structuring AI policies for scientific research
- Counseling organizations on export control and other regulations governing the transfer of sensitive medical technologies and information, both to outside the United States and to non-U.S. scientists working at research institutions in the U.S.
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