By Melissa Tribelhorn/ For The Herald
Washington has always been a place where curiosity leads to cures.
From Pullman to Seattle, Washington’s labs and clinical research sites are filled with people who get up every day determined to cure disease, serve their communities, and push toward what’s possible.
But discoveries alone don’t change the world; the system that moves research from the lab to real-world solutions does.
That’s why Washington’s official recognition of October’s Intellectual Property Month was more critical and timely than ever.
For more than four decades, the federal government has operated under a simple principle: When taxpayer-funded research leads to a promising invention, universities should be able to own it, license it and work with private-sector partners who have the expertise and capital to turn it into a product. This “technology transfer” model ensures that breakthroughs don’t gather dust on a shelf; they move forward, attract investment and ultimately reach patients, consumers and communities.
This system has been especially critical for states such as Washington, where research isn’t theoretical, it translates into 2,100 active clinical trials, 81,000 jobs and a thriving network of scientists, students and innovators. Universities reinvest royalties into new labs, new equipment, scholarships and the next generation of researchers. It is one of the most successful public–private partnerships in modern history.
And yet, right now, that system is under threat at the worst possible moment.
Federal research cuts — including to the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention programs — are already shrinking university budgets. Fewer grants mean fewer labs, fewer graduate students and fewer new discoveries. Top researchers are even heading overseas where funding is more secure.
In this environment, revenue from commercialization becomes critical. Tech transfer isn’t just about innovation; it keeps research programs alive. America has long led the world in biomedical breakthroughs, but that leadership will slip if we allow these cuts and pressures to continue.
Weakening intellectual property protections or allowing the government to second-guess partnerships after an invention succeeds would send a chilling message to investors and industry partners: don’t take the risk, because the reward may not be secure. And when private investment dries up, it is universities and hospitals (and by extension, patients) — not large corporations — that feel the impact first. Promising discoveries stall. Licensing revenue disappears. Research capacity shrinks. Students and post-doctoral and early-career researchers lose opportunities.
Removing tech transfer protections in a moment of federal pullback would be like asking universities to build the airplane while taking away both the wings and the fuel.
Instead of undermining a system that works, we should be strengthening the research-to-innovation pipeline; especially now. If taxpayers are going to fund breakthrough science, they deserve to see results in the form of real cures, real products and real economic return. That only happens when academic institutions have both the freedom to commercialize discoveries and the certainty that their partners will invest in bringing those discoveries to life.
Washington’s researchers can — and will — continue work to solve hard problems. But they need stable policy, reliable federal investment and a technology transfer system that honors the partnership between public research institutions and private innovators.
Intellectual property matters. We should protect the engine that turns ideas into impact, not dismantle it. At a time when research budgets are shrinking, weakening tech transfer would slow innovation when we most need to accelerate it. By keeping strong IP protections in place, we ensure that discoveries made in Washington don’t die in the lab ; they change lives in the real world.
Melissa Tribelhorn is CEO and executive director of the Northwest Association for Biomedical Research.
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