Building a Technology Trust in Genomics

We propose to explore the potential of technology trusts - enabling collective action by the public sector involving diverse stakeholders - to pool intellectual property and to cultivate collective norms that can harness to R&D promising genomic technologies that can yield benefits for the poor and excluded. For markets that are small or resource-poor, the hurdles to benefiting from genomic technologies can easily become barricades to access. So the costs of cross-licensing intellectual property, bundling multiple genomic components under patent, or taking on the uncertainty of product development without the certainty of underlying patent rights can set a threshold too high to overcome. Pooling of intellectual property can lower this threshold, but requires upfront investment before collective action might occur. Even then, norms and incentives may play an important role in engaging stakeholders to participate in R&D efforts where the promised return on investment is small. The specific aims of this project are to:

1. Investigate and identify promising genomic technologies, where the collective management of intellectual property might enable greater innovation and more affordable access to the end products. By focusing on specific case studies of genomic technologies, where markets are small or resource-poor, we will demonstrate how the innovation landscape affects the pace and direction of R&D as well as its commercial prospects.

2. Study the norms, incentives and network effects within a scientific community and among a group of stakeholders engaged in the research and development of a specific genomic technology. Through semi-structured interviews of the key players, we will study the norms, incentives, and network effects at work among those engaged in bringing a genomic technology to market.

3. Conceptualize potential policy options in developing a technology trust - a pooling of intellectual property and exercise of norms through collective, public sector action - and provide a roadmap for creating a technology trust for a specific genomic technology. With the innovation landscape and the study of community norms, the project will be positioned not only to consider policy options for developing a technology trust, but consider how it may operate for a specific genomic technology.

In sum, to harness genomic technologies for afflictions from malaria and SARS to rare genetic diseases, this project offers a roadmap to assessing the potential of pooling intellectual property and applying norms through collective, public sector action. In so doing, perhaps those in resource-poor settings may trust that IP barriers do not delay or block their access to genomic technology.