Better Return on Our Tax Dollar Investment

 I received the following post in my Facebook timeline recently. The full release by Congressman Cole can be found at: https://cole.house.gov/media-center/weekly-columns/funding-fight-cure.

One of the most important investments Congress makes with our tax dollars is the funding of university grants to support basic scientific research or the search for treatments or cures of diseases or cancers. Unfortunately, these grants turn out to be give aways rather than investments. Although society does ultimately gain some benefit from the funded research, the greatest return on these investments enures to the benefit of the researcher, their university, and ultimately, big pharma.

How does this happen?

In 1980, the Bayh-Dole Act was passed as a form of economic stimulus. In a nutshell, this act allows universities to claim ownership of inventions or scientific discoveries that result from federally funded research. The net effect of this is to incentivize universities and their researchers to jealously guard their research in anticipation of the financial and professional rewards that will result from patenting their discoveries. The payoff comes when these patents are sold or licensed to industry. 

How about a solution that would lead to more rapid advances in science and a better return to society?

My proposal:

All the fruits of federally funded research should simply go into the public domain and be unpatentable. Big pharma would be free to use the research to commercialize the findings; however, the drugs would essentially be generic from day one. The cost of the basic research and initial trials being already borne by the taxpayer, our ROI would come in the form of more drugs and treatments for more diseases and cancers at lower cost as more producers are allowed to compete. 

Bayh-Dole was essentially a wealth transfer from taxpayers to universities and the pharmaceutical industry. Congress should act more like venture capitalists and less like a non-profit charity. Bayh-Dole should be repealed or modified.