{"entity":{"id":"idea-fund-combination-patent-pool","kind":"idea","name":"An oncology patent pool for combination trials across companies","aka":[],"tldr":"Companies would put their cancer drugs into a shared licensing pool so that any qualified investigator can test combinations of drugs from different owners under one standard agreement, with royalties split by a fixed formula.","summary":"A voluntary pool, administered by a neutral body on the model of the Medicines Patent Pool and the MPEG patent pools, in which participating companies grant a standard non-exclusive licence for their approved and late-stage oncology agents to be used in combination trials sponsored by academic groups, non-profits or other pool members, with pre-agreed terms for drug supply, data rights, publication and downstream royalty sharing if a combination is approved. Today each combination requires a bespoke negotiation that can take longer than the trial; pooled terms cut that to weeks. Regulators would recognise pool trials as acceptable for combination labelling.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"Medicines Patent Pool","url":"https://medicinespatentpool.org/"}],"tags":[],"related":["idea-fund-standard-combination-agreement","idea-fund-compulsory-combination-access","idea-fund-neutral-platform-sponsor","adc-plus-io","radiation-plus-io"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-ip-collaboration","b-combination-space"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"A pool with at least ten participating companies doubles the number of registered cross-company combination trials involving pooled agents within three years and reduces median contract negotiation time for such trials from over a year to under three months.","rationale":"The Medicines Patent Pool has licensed dozens of HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis products through standard terms; standards-essential patent pools show competing firms can agree fixed royalty splits. Combination therapy is where most oncology benefit now comes from and where inter-company friction is greatest.","test":"Convene five companies and two academic networks to sign pool terms for a defined set of agents; measure trials initiated and negotiation time against the same companies' prior bilateral combination agreements.","maturity":"speculative","actor":"industry","cost":"medium","horizonYears":3},"route":"/ideas/idea-fund-combination-patent-pool/","neighbours":{"idea":[{"id":"idea-fund-compulsory-combination-access","kind":"idea","name":"A legal right to obtain marketed cancer drugs at cost for combination trials","route":"/ideas/idea-fund-compulsory-combination-access/"},{"id":"idea-fund-neutral-platform-sponsor","kind":"idea","name":"A permanent neutral non-profit sponsor for multi-company platform trials","route":"/ideas/idea-fund-neutral-platform-sponsor/"},{"id":"idea-fund-standard-combination-agreement","kind":"idea","name":"A regulator-endorsed standard contract for inter-company combination trials","route":"/ideas/idea-fund-standard-combination-agreement/"},{"id":"idea-fund-antitrust-safe-harbour","kind":"idea","name":"An antitrust safe harbour for cross-company combination trials and data pooling","route":"/ideas/idea-fund-antitrust-safe-harbour/"},{"id":"idea-fund-global-access-licensing-royalties","kind":"idea","name":"University licences with royalties indexed to benefit and global access","route":"/ideas/idea-fund-global-access-licensing-royalties/"}],"pairing":[{"id":"adc-plus-io","kind":"pairing","name":"ADC + checkpoint inhibitor","route":"/pairings/adc-plus-io/"},{"id":"radiation-plus-io","kind":"pairing","name":"Radiotherapy + immunotherapy","route":"/pairings/radiation-plus-io/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-ip-collaboration","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Secrecy and intellectual property block collaboration","route":"/bottlenecks/b-ip-collaboration/"},{"id":"b-combination-space","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Too many combinations to test","route":"/bottlenecks/b-combination-space/"}]}}