Despite Trump Cabinet member’s claim, taxpayer-funded science pays dividends
In my nearly 50 years as a chemist at Emory University, I’ve seen the life-changing impact that federally funded university research can have firsthand.
I spent the 1980s and 1990s helping develop the first treatments for HIV, which turned the disease from a death sentence into a manageable illness.
My work played a pivotal role in the success of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has saved 26 million lives —lobally – and today, drugs like these are estimated to save over a million lives each year.
That’s why I was so alarmed to hear Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick state on “The Axios Show” a few months ago that U.S. taxpayers get “zero” return on their investment in university research — and that the government should start seizing licensing revenues on universities’ patents it helps fund to secure a better deal for the public.
1980 Bayh-Dole Act was a policy game changer
The truth is that taxpayers already get an extraordinary return on that investment.
My own work offers just one example.
Across the country, federally funded science has spawned thousands of world-changing inventions, new companies and millions of high-quality jobs. Yet, none of that success is guaranteed.
If Lutnick’s proposal takes effect, it risks overturning the carefully calibrated technology transfer system that translates basic laboratory research into real-world treatments and products.
That system was put in place by the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act — a law which is widely recognized as one of the most important innovation policy reforms in U.S. history.
Before Bayh-Dole was enacted, taxpayers really were getting little in return for the research they helped fund.
That’s because the government owned the patents on all university discoveries that stemmed from federal grant funding. But federal agencies licensed fewer than 5% of those patents to private companies for further development.
Bayh-Dole changed that. It allowed universities to own the patents on discoveries arising from federally supported research — giving those institutions the ability and incentive to partner with startups and entrepreneurs willing to take the risks necessary to bring those ideas to market. This simple reform unleashed a wave of innovation nationwide.
The “AIDS cocktail” that my colleagues and I helped develop is a prime example of how Bayh-Dole works. It also shows how, even with strong patents, shepherding a promising invention to market isn’t easy.
After years of federally funded research, my colleagues and I patented our discoveries, fought off imitators and spent years finding a company willing to shoulder the enormous costs of development.
Only then, after more than a decade of work, did our invention become an FDA-approved therapy.
How federal law benefits research and innovation in Georgia
Bayh-Dole’s success story continues to play out here in Georgia. I am personally involved with numerous local biotech startups, such as Neurotrauma Sciences, Neurop, Inc., and Que Oncology, that are based on Emory-invented advancements in neurological and cancer treatment.
Elsewhere in our state, Georgia Tech startups are revolutionizing personalized medicine and battery technology, while University of Georgia-spawned companies are pioneering advances in artificial intelligence and 3D imaging.
These startups and inventions represent just a fraction of the benefits Bayh-Dole has delivered for Americans.
Research commercialized under the law has produced thousands of technological advancements, such as high-definition television and Google. It has led to over 200 new medicines, including numerous cancer therapies and vaccines for COVID-19. And it has supported considerable economic growth, leading to over 19,000 startups and 6.5 million jobs.
University tech transfer offices, including Emory’s, rely on licensing revenue to fund future research and commercialization efforts. Reducing that income by half, as Lutnick proposes, would deprive universities of resources they need to file patents and then find and partner with private companies interested in, and capable of, developing those breakthroughs.
Today, millions of people are alive because the government and taxpayers decided decades ago that supporting my HIV research was worthwhile. But if Lutnick’s proposal takes effect, the cures and breakthroughs of tomorrow may never make it out of university labs. Taxpayer-funded research will once again go to waste. And consumers and businesses across America will be worse off.
Dr. Dennis Liotta is a Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Emory University and executive director of the Emory Institute for Drug Development.
