July 11, 2007--The National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched a new Web-based resource called NIH Pipeline to Partnerships (P2P), aimed at furthering the development of NIH's licensed technologies and technologies funded through the NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.

This new P2P initiative, developed jointly between the NIH Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) and the NIH SBIR and STTR Program Office, provides a virtual space where NIH licensees and NIH SBIR/STTR awardees can showcase their technologies and product development for an audience of potential strategic partners, investors, and licensees.

NIH is continually developing ways to help new biomedical technologies succeed and foster their development and entry into the marketplace.

"In the last decade, many successful biomedical products have come from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that licensed early-stage technologies from NIH," said Mark Rohrbaugh, Ph.D., J.D., Director of the NIH Technology Transfer Office. "Faced with less demand for early-stage technologies, this pipeline provides an avenue for potential partners to find NIH licensees along the spectrum of product development to share costs, infrastructure, and expertise as the research and development progresses to later stage clinical trials."

Health-related products that grew out of this process include Velcade® (bortezomib), a treatment for multiple myeloma, and Synagis® (palivizumab), a treatment to help prevent Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) infection in babies and young children.

This exciting NIH P2P initiative can also help NIH SBIR/STTR awardees that face similar challenges in moving their innovations along the development pipeline. "These small companies simply can't go it alone," said Jo Anne Goodnight, Coordinator of NIH's SBIR/STTR programs. "Given the expensive pre-clinical and clinical studies necessary to bring novel products to the market and the patient, many of these projects need additional financing, licensing deals, or strategic partnerships. We see the P2P database as an important resource to help small businesses make a successful leap from discovery to commercialization of products resulting from innovative biomedical and behavioral research."

A pipeline of technologies available for partnering is now available on the OTT Web site (www.ott.nih.gov/P2P) as an index searchable by category of technology and stage of development. Once a technology of interest is identified, the interested party is directed to the licensee/awardee developing the technology. All submissions to the site by the licensees and grantees will be voluntary. Although NIH will approve all postings, NIH will not be involved directly in the partnering activities.

By providing this resource, NIH is advancing its mission to further the development of its own licensed technologies or those for which it has provided SBIR/STTR funding. This Web site provides a new avenue by which NIH can facilitate more rapid development of products for the benefit of public health.

The Office of the Director, the central office at NIH, is responsible for setting policy for NIH, which includes 27 Institutes and Centers. This involves planning, managing, and coordinating the programs and activities of all NIH components. The Office of the Director also includes program offices which are responsible for stimulating specific areas of research throughout NIH. Additional information is available at http://www.nih.gov/icd/od/.

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