Several scholars – including Pierre Azoulay, Chiara Franzoni and Paula Stephan (co-authored), and Lisa Larrimore Ouellette – contribute their thoughts on how research and experimentation could enhance the NIH’s ability to support high social-impact work and ensure funded discoveries reach beyond academia to directly benefit patients.

Lisa Larrimore Ouellette of Stanford Law School discusses reforms to policies to support commercialization of NIH-funded research. She explains the political and empirical challenges to reforms related to patenting and licensing policies and that the NIH may have greater social impact through reforms to its direct funding of commercialization.