Intellectual friction and remix: ‘this was killing us’
The goal of the new CFF [Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, a US patient charity] Therapeutics Lab, says Preston W. Campbell III, the foundation’s CEO and president, is to generate and share tools, assays, and lead compounds, boosting its partners’ chances of finding treatments. Frustration with academic technology transfer agreements was a key motivation, he notes. University-based researchers funded by the foundation have to seek approval from their institution’s legal department before sharing assays, cells, or any intellectual property, a hurdle that can take a year to negotiate. “This was killing us,” Campbell says, “ but if we created our own laboratory, we could not only focus on the things we wanted to focus on, we could also share them freely.” Science