NIH Support for FDA-Approved Medicines

Expanding roles for academic entrepreneurship in drug discovery

An assessment of inventors of US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medicines reveals a growing role for academic entrepreneurship in general and National Institutes of Health (NIH)-supported investigators in particular. For all small-molecule therapeutics approved between 2001 and 2019 (383 in total), 8.3% listed an academic inventor in the Orange Book. Remarkably, an additional 23.8% listed an inventor from a company founded by an NIH-funded academic inventor. Over time, the relative inventive contributions from academia has progressively increased, including nearly one-third of medicines approved since 2017. These findings suggest a surging role for academic inventors and founders, perhaps in combination with a faltering of traditional private sector dominance of drug discovery.

Public sector financial support for late stage discovery of new drugs in the United States: cohort study

OBJECTIVE

To determine the extent to which late stage development of new drugs relies on support from public funding.

DESIGN

Cohort study.

SETTING

All new drugs containing one or more new molecular entities approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between January 2008 and December 2017 via the new drug application pathway.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Patents or drug development histories documenting late stage research contributions by a public sector research institution or a spin-off company, as well as each drug's regulatory approval pathway and first-in-class designation.

RESULTS

Over the 10 year study period, the FDA approved 248 drugs containing one or more new molecular entities. Of these drugs, 48 (19%) had origins in publicly supported research and development and 14 (6%) originated in companies spun off from a publicly supported research program. Drugs in these groups were more likely to receive expedited FDA approval (68% v 47%, P=0.005) or be designated first in class (45% v 26%, P=0.007), indicating therapeutic importance.

CONCLUSIONS

A review of the patents associated with new drugs approved over the past decade indicates that publicly supported research had a major role in the late stage development of at least one in four new drugs, either through direct funding of late stage research or through spin-off companies created from public sector research institutions. These findings could have implications for policy makers in determining fair prices and revenue flows for these products.