Recalibrating intellectual property rights to enhance translational research collaborations

Multisectoral collaborative models for drug and therapeutic research and development (R&D) are emerging, requiring a recalibration of how intellectual property rights (IPRs) are used. Although these models appear promising, little study has been conducted on the optimal blend of sharing and exclusion as mediated through the proactive use or nonuse of IPRs. This Commentary is a call for a combination of theoretical and empirical analyses to build a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between formal IP laws, institutions that administer and manage IPRs, and the use of IPRs in practice to better construct and manage collaborations. Such analyses require outcome metrics formulated to measure the success of therapeutic outcomes and to capture the complexity of a highly networked R&D environment.