
With the cutting edge science developments that occur at NCI, things like combination therapies are coming into play. A significant barrier is that when one company owns a particular drug which works better with an experimental drug from another company (or when trying to test the effects of a combination of two drugs, when both drugs are owned by different companies)–issues may arise when having the two groups come together to make an agreement to be able to use them collectively. Other barriers – even though NCI has platforms to try to mend these issues – include intellectual property rights [which define] who has the rights to what type of discovery. These issues depend upon whether a drug has been given to NCI from an outside [organization] to work with or [if we are testing] something that is being licensed from within. These issues can raise legal concerns and can slow things down, hindering forward development.