Preference for master agreements at university/industry interface

At a panel on intellectual property at Princeton, Arthur Levinson, president and chief executive officer of Genentech, gave a number of significant insights.

Talking about the Supreme Court decision in Merck v. Integra, he noted that those in business look to the Supreme Court for clarity in patent rules. Of agreements between universities and industry, he suggested that the presence of master agreements, wherein there is a promise to be fair and reasonable are preferable to negotiating the intricate details of individual agreements, especially in the pharma area wherein only one of every 5000 compounds might materialize as a candidate of interest.