Accelerating Federal Technology Transfer Through a Startup Challenge Licensing Mode

United States taxpayers invest nearly $200 billion each year in research and development conducted at universities, federal laboratories, and hospitals to generate inventions with the potential to improve lives and transform industries. Historically, this public investment has produced world-changing technologies, including water filtration systems, insulin pumps, cochlear implants, charge-coupled devices, memory foam, and globally impactful companies. In select cases, federally developed technologies licensed through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have advanced all the way to market, contributing to more than 50 FDA-approved drugs and vaccines, including recent approvals of first-in-class vaccines derived from NIH-licensed technologies. Yet despite these successes, fewer than 0.1 percent of federally funded inventions are ultimately commercialized, leaving most of the taxpayer-supported innovation dormant.