NIH chief may ask pharma to pay royalties on research

Wait a minute...I thought this was what the Bayh-Dole Act was supposed to do...make money for the taxpayers through licensing fees and royalties from patents granted to universities on research that had been supported by NIH and other grants.
That is what we were told in 1980.
You mean the money from licence fees and royalties never got back to the federal government from the universities?
Gee...guess I was mis-informed...again.

Has the NIH earned the rights to take money from pharmaceutical companies for drug development?

The NIH’s contribution to the drug development process has been investigated by the US government and a private think tank and has been thus far determined as mostly -- not worthy of money.

Out of thirty-five drugs and drug classes, private-sector research was responsible for applied science advances for thirty-four, and in the development of these drugs yielding improved clinical performance or manufacturing processes for twenty-eight. In this think tank study almost all of the drugs and drug classes examined would have been made without pharmaceutical companies. 1

In a 2001 report to Congress, NIH concluded that none of the top-selling prescription drugs were developed entirely by the agency, and only four of 47 drugs with U.S. sales of $500 million a year had been developed in part with technologies created with NIH funding. 2

1. From The Truth About Drug Innovation: Thirty-Five Summary Case Histories on Private Sector Contributions to Pharmaceutical Science..Benjamin Zycher, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, Joseph A. DiMasi, Director of Economic Analysis, Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, Christopher-Paul Milne A
2. From National Institutes of Health. A plan to ensure taxpayer interests are protected. NIH responses to the conference report request for a plan to ensure taxpayers’ interests are protected; July 2001 Available from: http://www.mih.gov/news/070101wyden.htm.

Collin's seems to be buying in to the mantra "NIH discovers all drugs" which while indeed true they often make major contributions to basic science, which is their mission after all, that it is a long way from a new drug. Yes companies should and do pay royalties on NIH/Univ. Patents when warranted but does the government cover the costs of the translation and development of drugs. They certainly do not seem to share in the liability when that Science shows negative side affects. In the end doesn't Pharma and the people that work in the industry pay taxes which does support NIH assuming Congress appropriately approves the funds.