NIH launched an “initiative that will facilitate the ability of start-up companies to license inventions for groundbreaking medical technologies for drugs, vaccines and therapeutics developed by intramural scientists at NIH.” As part of this program, the NIH “is reducing both the costs and paperwork requirements for start-up companies to obtain an exclusive option agreement to license the extensive patent portfolio developed by intramural research laboratories at both NIH and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.” The new start-up license agreements have been developed the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) at NIH: Companies that are less than five years old, have fewer than 50 employees and received investment of less than $5 million are eligible to use the new, short-term exclusive Start-Up Evaluation License Agreement and the new Start-Up Commercial License Agreement. Starting on 1 October 2011, “biomedical entrepreneurs will be able to apply for any of the available patents and patent applications relating to drugs, vaccines or therapeutics in the NIH/FDA portfolio by submitting a business plan for how they propose to use them.”

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/sep2011/od-16a.htm