General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: this is the pill that cures Hepatitis C. This is that pill on big Pharma [View all]True Earthling
(832 posts)In fact drug company R&D has more than tripled as a percentage of sales and has one of the largest if not the largest R&D spending budgets of any industry.
Not that many drugs are developed by the NIH..and the NIH receives royalties on those drugs that do get to market.
The NIH owns it's own patents for drugs discovered by NIH scientists and can license the tech to for-profits in exchange for royalties. I would expect a lower royalty for drugs discovered by for-profit drug companies funded by NIH grants.
There was a study back in 2000 that looked at approved drugs with over $500M annual sales...Out of 47 FDA approved drugs only 4 were developed in part with technologies from NIH funding.
Total R&D spending by drug co's was over $50B last yr...NIH grants to for-profit drug co's in 2015 was only $863M...less than 2%.