PRESS RELEASE September 29, 2016 #16-15
CONTACT: (Media Only) Paul Fucito or Ryan Elliott at (571) 272-8400 paul.fucito@uspto.gov or ryan.elliott@uspto.gov
USPTO Announces
Patents for Humanity Winners
Washington – The U.S. Commerce Department’s United
States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced the latest winners
of the Patents
for Humanity program. The Patents for Humanity program was launched by the
USPTO in February 2012 as
part of an Obama administration initiative promoting game-changing innovations
to solve long-standing development challenges.
“We’ve seen the profound impact that good
ideas—patented and marketed—can have on human beings, transcending national
borders and transforming lives around the world,” said Under Secretary of
Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and
Trademark Office Michelle K. Lee. “By showcasing the meritorious work of patent owners
to address 21st century humanitarian challenges, we hope this program will
continue to inspire and guide countless more innovators.”
The
Patents for Humanity Award is the USPTO's top honor for applicants best
representing the Patents
for Humanity principles. Award recipients receive public recognition at an
award ceremony arranged by the USPTO. They also receive a certificate to
accelerate certain matters before the Office. Honorable mentions go to
applicants who were close to qualifying for top honors and may apply again in
future years with further development of their technology. They receive a
limited acceleration benefit.
Entries
were received in five categories: medicine, nutrition, sanitation, energy and
living standards. Although four of the categories did not produce
honorees this year, the USPTO expects that will change in future cycles. Applications to the program were accepted
through December 4, 2015.
The
award ceremony is being scheduled for the fall, with arrangements forthcoming.
The next round of the competition will be announced at a later date.
Following
is a list of the 2016 Patents for Humanity winners:
USPTO is giving four awards
and two honorable mentions in the 2016 Patents for Humanity awards. The award winners are:
-
U.S. Food & Drug Administration
– for developing an improved meningitis vaccine production process that’s been
used to immunize 235 million people in high-risk Africa countries.
-
Case Western Reserve University
– for creating a low-cost, accurate malaria detection device using magnets and
lasers that allows better diagnosis and treatment.
-
GestVision
– for developing a quick, simple diagnostic test for preeclampsia, a
potentially life threatening pregnancy complication, for use in developing
regions.
-
Global Good Fund at Intellectual
Ventures – for creating a passive cooler that can keep
vaccines cold over 30 days and donating dozens of units to the fight against
Ebola and other relief efforts.
Honorable mentions go to:
-
Sanofi
– for researching new malaria drug candidates with shorter, simpler treatment
-
Alere Inc
– for developing diagnostic assays for rapid and early HIV diagnosis at the
point of care in low-resource settings
More details on each award
winner below.
U.S.
Food & Drug Administration
Meningitis
A is a devastating disease afflicting 26 countries in Africa’s meningitis belt
across sub-Saharan Africa. Thousands of
people would die or be disabled each year, such as the 1996-97 epidemic when
25,000 were killed and a quarter million afflicted. The disease primarily afflicts young adults
and children, leaving many wage earners with permanent brain damage. The Meningitis Vaccine Program (MVP) was
formed by the health non-profit PATH, the Gates Foundation, and the World
Health Organization to combat this epidemic.
Besides
regulating the safety of food and health products, the U.S. Food & Drug
Administration (FDA) also conducts research on human health issues. FDA scientists set out to create a better
meningitis vaccine production method for the MVP. The new technology they came up with raised
the vaccine production yield from 20% to 60% and enabled the vaccine to last up
to four days without refrigeration, unlike previous vaccines. FDA licensed the technology to the MVP and
hosted production scientists from MVP’s Indian manufacturer to teach them how
to use the vaccine production technology.
As a result, more than 235 million people in Africa’s meningitis belt
have been immunized with MenAfriVac® since 2010. Only four cases of meningitis A were reported
in 2013 in the immunized region covering 16 countries. In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO)
recommended that MenAfriVac® be introduced in routine immunization schedules in
sub-Saharan Africa. This will ensure
that infants are protected against meningitis and will maintain population-wide
immunity.
Case
Western Reserve University (CWRU)
Accurately
diagnosing malaria is a difficult problem, with an estimated half of global
cases undiagnosed. The standard
microscope test has low sensitivity with up to 30% false positives and 20%
false negatives. This causes people
infected with malaria to go untreated and people without malaria to receive
anti-malarial drugs, contributing to drug resistance. Engineers and doctors at Case Western Reserve
University (CWRU) designed a rapid, accurate, low-cost malaria diagnostic test
to address this problem. The
Magneto-Optical Detection (MOD) device uses lasers and magnets to diagnose
malaria in a completely new way, by detecting iron-laden byproducts of the parasite
in the blood. This provides results in
minutes with just a finger prick blood sample.
The device can be ten times cheaper per test than the current standard
and can be run by ordinary caregivers with minimal training. CWRU has conducted field trials diagnosing
malaria in the Amazon, India, and Kenya.
Since receiving an honorable mention in the 2014 Patents for Humanity
program, CWRU has begun working with manufacturers to produce the device at
scale for wider user.
GestVision
Preeclampsia (PE)
is a pregnancy complication that is the leading cause of prenatal death for
mothers and babies worldwide, mostly in low and middle income countries. Although most deaths are preventable,
approximately 63,000 women die from PE annually. In developed countries, PE can be diagnosed
by regular doctor visits and laboratory tests, allowing treatment before severe
symptoms occur. However, in developing
regions without regular prenatal care, PE is often undiagnosed until serious
complications such as stroke or organ failure occur. Startup company GestVision has developed a
rapid, low-cost urine test for caregivers to diagnose PE in low-resource
settings. The test detects misfolded proteins
in urine associated with PE, shown by a colored dot similar to a pregnancy
test. Gestvision’s test kits are
currently being used in clinical studies around the world, including
Bangladesh, Mexico City, and South Africa under grants from USAID, the Gates
Foundation, and others. Following
initial research at Yale University, GestVision was created to further develop
the technology. GestVision is working on
a manufacturing process to produce the kits in large volume.
Global
Good Fund at Intellectual Ventures
Delivering
vaccines to off-grid regions is complicated by the need to keep them cold. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates
that 25-50% of global vaccines are wasted annually, much of this due to
problems with maintaining a refrigeration “cold chain” during delivery. Researchers at Global Good designed the
Arktek cooler to keep vaccines cold for over a month with no power
required. The device combines an
advanced design with high-efficiency insulation materials to prevent heat
transfer.
Global Good Fund
is a division of Intellectual Ventures dedicated to inventing technology that
improves lives in the developing world.
They aim to develop sustainable commercialization models which ensure
the technology is affordable, accessible, and appropriate for developing
regions. Global Good donated 30 Arktek
coolers to help the WHO deliver vaccines during the Ebola outbreak in 2014, and
to Nepal to assist with vaccinations after the 2015 earthquake. They have also partnered the Clinton Health
Access Initiative, PATH, the Gates Foundation, UNICEF, and other United Nations
organizations to conduct field trials with over 50 devices in Ghana, Senegal,
Ethiopia and Nigeria. Arktek has been
used to store vaccines for tuberculosis, polio, and the pentavalent vaccines
covering influenza, whooping cough, tetanus, hepatitis B, and diphtheria. The technology has been licensed to a leading
refrigeration manufacturer to produce the device at scale for an affordable
price.
For more
information on Patents for Humanity, including the latest announcements and more
info about the program, visit the USPTO’s Patents for
Humanity webpage.
Stay current
with the USPTO by subscribing to receive email updates at our Subscription
Center at www.uspto.gov/subscribe.
###
|