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The 2017 Deals of Distinction™ Award was presented to National Institutes of Health, (NIH) along with its corporate partners, AbbVie and Biogen, for a license agreement related to the development and launch of Zinbryta® for treatment of relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS)   The award, one of the most prestigious for technology transfer, was given to NIH and its partners at the Licensing Executives Society Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois.

The NIH Technology Transfer Program has won the Licensing Executive Society’s Deals of Distinction award for 2022. The Deals of Distinction Award is given to an outstanding licensing deal from the past year. Steve Ferguson, Special Advisor at the NIH Office of Technology Transfer, recently attended the LES award ceremony to accept the award on NIH’s behalf. Continue reading to learn about this award-winning license agreement from Steve himself.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has awarded Kenneth Jacobson the E.B. Hershberg Award for Important Discoveries in Medicinally Active Substances. Jacobson is a Senior Investigator at the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Jacobson was selected for this award for his original and high-impact research in structure-based medicinal chemistry, including the discovery of G-protein receptor modulators in clinical trials.

THE PROBLEM: APDS (activated PI3 kinase delta syndrome) — also known as PASLI (p110 delta-activating mutation causing senescent T cells, lymphadenopathy and immunodeficiency) disease — is a rare disorder that severely impairs the immune system’s ability to fight bacterial and viral infections, making patients susceptible to severe and recurrent infections, lymphoma, autoimmune diseases and other health issues. This disease is estimated to affect up to two people per million, and it can only be cured via bone marrow transplant.

NIAID TTIPO’s extraordinary efforts in “COVID-19 Technologies Licensed Globally Through WHO Program” was recognized by the Licensing Executives Society (U.S.A. & Canada) in 2022 with a Deals of Distinction Award in the Industry-University-Government Interface Sector. This award acknowledged the collaborative efforts put forth by the WHO, Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and the NIH for COVID-19 technologies licensed globally through the WHO program.

Through a CRADA with EMD Serono, NCI played an instrumental role in developing and 
expediting regulatory approval of EMD Serono’s checkpoint inhibitor, avelumab. Avelumab 
received FDA approval in 2017, only four years after EMD Serono and NCI added the study of 
avelumab to their CRADA. This was a remarkably fast developmental and regulatory approval 
timeline.

Through a CRADA with EMD Serono, NCI played an instrumental role in developing and 
expediting regulatory approval of EMD Serono’s checkpoint inhibitor, avelumab. Avelumab 
received FDA approval in 2017, only four years after EMD Serono and NCI added the study of 
avelumab to their CRADA. This was a remarkably fast developmental and regulatory approval 
timeline.

The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) besto

In 2011, NCI and Iovance Biotherapeutics entered into a CRADA for the development of Adoptive Cell Therapy (ACT) using Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TIL). Technology licenses between NCI and Iovance were established to grant Iovance rights to the NIH’s TIL patent estate. By 2019, Iovance began conducting two pivotal multi-center trials of TIL technology in advanced cervical cancer and metastatic melanoma and has achieved Breakthrough Therapy and Fast Track designations from the FDA in these indications, respectively.