March-In Rights at a Crossroad: What Biopharma Needs To Know Under Trump Administration

Abstract

Few pieces of legislation have shaped the modern innovation landscape as profoundly as the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. By allowing universities, small businesses, and non-profit organizations to retain ownership of inventions developed with federal funding, Bayh-Dole transformed how research moved from the lab bench to the marketplace. It created a fertile environment for university–industry collaboration and fueled the growth of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, giving rise to some of the most significant medical breakthroughs of the past half century. Yet the same framework that helped build the modern innovation economy now sits at the center of a growing debate over whether its balance between private incentives and public benefit still holds.