A new payment site within Pay.gov will make it easier for companies that license inventions owned by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make their royalty payments. Royalties are typically paid upfront for biological materials and over the term of a commercial patent license. The project is led by the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) and the Office of Financial Management at NIH.
By eliminating the need for bank checks, this bank-to-bank transfer system can shorten the processing time from several months to a day or less. This also will reduce the administrative costs by moving from a paper system to a secure electronic system.
"The new Pay.gov process will hasten the pace of technology transfer to the private sector, enabling business to commercialize important discoveries made by scientists in NIH and FDA laboratories," said OTT Director Mark Rohrbaugh. "Our licensees have been asking for such a service for years, because waiting too long to secure research materials or tools can sink a drug development program or other business venture. Pay.gov is open 24-7, and we encourage its use for all types of royalty payments."
Companies, universities and other research organizations can now pay royalties on Pay.gov by going to https://www.pay.gov and clicking on NIH in the agency list.
Pay.gov is a multifaceted web-based application allowing anyone to make Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments to government agencies by debit from a checking or savings account. Pay.gov was launched in 2000 and is maintained by the Department of the Treasury. For more information, visit https://www.pay.gov/paygov/faqs.html.
The NIH OTT administers approximately $90 million annually in royalty payments from about 500 companies, and licensees reported product sales of approximately $6 billion last year. The OTT manages the patenting and licensing of the wide range of NIH and FDA inventions. The commercialization of government-owned inventions is encouraged and governed by the provisions of the Federal Technology Transfer Act and related legislation.
For more information, visit http://www.ott.nih.gov.
