Commercial Licensing of HIV-1 Protease: Applications of the NIH Research Tools Policy.

Licensing of the HIV-1 protease gene by the NIH Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) provides an example of the effective use of the principles of the NIH Research Tools Policy, which was designed to provide broad access to important biomedical technologies. The OTT licensing experience is presented in detail as it was applied to research reagents, diagnostics and drug development to thus enhance the overall development process for a wide variety of medical products.