MICCAI 2016 Daily - Thursday

Clare Tempany: I agree, and it has changed a lot since I began in this career. It’s been at least 20 years that I’ve been doing this kind of research. It was much easier 20 years ago than it is today for sure. 20 years ago, it was simple to have a relationship with someone who was interested in your science, who wanted to fund you, invite you to give a talk, speak to a group, or go to a meeting. All of these things were much more encouraged. Nowadays, there is this very big sensitivity about confidentiality of data, intellectual property, proprietary rights, and then of course, in the US, the concern of Influencing or changing the doctor because of undue influence. Particularly in the state I live in, Massachusetts, we have a Sunshine Law, by which I cannot go to a reception or a party given by anyone in the industry without declaring, writing, and letting everyone know. Of course, I have to acknowledge the support all the time, which we do. It’s become very difficult with strange relationships. Absolutely, you are correct. This led to this bottleneck in working through agreements, contracts, any form of negotiation with the partners in industry and academia doing research projects together. Both sides now have legal teams who are very careful about the wording of the contracts. The leading problem is which legal team is the dominating one. Usually, they are jockeying a little bit. Then usually a standard is set. The hospital says: ” OK, this is the template we use. This is the agreement ”. Then the industry eventually says yes if they are motivated enough. A lot of the time the problem with the bottleneck is that it causes people to question the motivation. Do I really want to do this or do I not? They say, “ Is it worth this effort or this fight? ” So then they sort of say, “ No, it’s not worth it. I’ll go somewhere else ”. Ralph: What are the criteria to decide if something is worth it or not? Is it money? Clare: It is everything. Does the CVPR Daily: Thursday Prof. Clare Tempany 4 MICCAI Daily: Thursday “ It was much easier 20 years ago than it is today for sure ” Ralph Anzarouth: You have been for a long time already at the key junction of these three areas: academia, medicine, and industry. During these past few days I’ve been hearing so often the idea of a “bottleneck” in the relations between these three worlds. Everyone says it will improve. What are the problems and what are the domains in which it should improve?