NIH funded grants and patents for selected diseases or technologies
(Update: Note that the NIH Report database key word searches report grants, and some patents are associated with more than one grant. This is true for all search terms listed below.
As part of a larger research project involving the role of government funded research, I was doing some counts of grants and patents associated with those grants, using the NIH RePort database.
The counts reported below are from searches on June 29, 2011.
Not surprisingly, if you have a disease, there are advantages to having one with a large patient population, and at least equal prevalence in high income countries.
I have also calculated the ratio of the patents to the number of grants, expressed below as a percent, in parenthesis after the number of patents. The unweighted mean and median were 4.8 and 4.1 percent, with a range of 0 to 12.3 percent, and a standard deviation of 2.77 percent. The tendency for grant recipients to obtain patents does not seem to differ much between Type I, II or III diseases — a classification used by the World Health Organization to indicate how the global incidence of the disease relates to national incomes.
Diseases
Type I
NIH grants mentioning cancer: 248,057
Patents from NIH grants mentioning cancer: 7,665 (3.1%)
NIH grants mentioning breast cancer: 45,338
Patents from NIH grants mentioning breast cancer: 1,905 (4.2%)
NIH grants mentioning prostate cancer: 21,334
Patents from NIH grants mentioning prostate cancer: 1,106 (5.2%)
NIH grants mentioning depression: 41,761
Patents from NIH grants mentioning depression: 883 (2.1%)
NIH grants mentioning dementia: 20,031
Patents from NIH grants mentioning dementia: 712 (3.6%)
NIH grants mentioning Alzheimer’s: 2,893
Patents from NIH grants mentioning Alzheimer’s: 357 (12.3%
NIH grants mentioning asthma: 19,268
Patents from NIH grants mentioning asthma: 648 (3.4%)
Type I orphan diseases
NIH grants mentioning Progressive Supranuclear Palsy: 471
Patents from NIH grants mentioning Progressive Supranuclear Palsy: 15 (3.2%)
NIH grants mentioning Fabry’s disease: 390
Patents from NIH grants mentioning Fabry’s disease: 43 (11.0%)
NIH grants mentioning Turner syndrome: 592
Patents from NIH grants mentioning Turner syndrome: 52 (8.8%)
Type II/ MDG
NIH grants mentioning HIV: 93,651
Patents from NIH grants mentioning HIV: 2,209 (2.4%)
NIH grants mentioning tuberculosis: 10,768
Patents from NIH grants mentioning tuberculosis: 366 (4.2%)
NIH grants mentioning malaria: 6,905
Patents from NIH grants mentioning malaria: 293 (4.1%)
Type III
NIH grants mentioning leishmaniasis: 1,809
Patents from NIH grants mentioning leishmaniasis: 75 (4.1%)
NIH grants mentioning Chagas: 1,256
Patents from NIH grants mentioning Chagas: 47 (3.7%)
NIH grants mentioning cholera: 2,907
Patents from NIH grants mentioning cholera: 333 (11.5%)
NIH grants mentioning Dengue: 1,694
Patents from NIH grants mentioning Dengue: 69 (4.1%)
NIH grants mentioning Onchocerciasis: 245
Patents from NIH grants mentioning Onchocerciasis: 8 (3.3%)
NIH grants mentioning schistosomiasis: 1,277
Patents from NIH grants mentioning schistosomiasis: 47 3.7%)
Other areas of priority
NIH grants mentioning Antibiotic resistance: 6,278
Patents from NIH grants mentioning Antibiotic resistance: 392 (6.2%)
Technologies
NIH grants mentioning diagnostic: 70,006
Patents from NIH grants mentioning diagnostic: 3,598 (5.1%)
NIH grants mentioning genomics: 42,187
Patents from NIH grants mentioning genomics: 1,864 (4.4%)
NIH grants mentioning gene sequence: 104,873
Patents from NIH grants mentioning gene sequence: 7,293 (7.0%)
NIH grants mentioning genetic disorder: 74,602
Patents from NIH grants mentioning genetic disorder: 3,332 (4.5%)
Other key words
NIH grants mentioning poverty: 4,837
Patents from NIH grants mentioning poverty: 87 (1.8%)
NIH grants mentioning contraception: 6,202
Patents from NIH grants mentioning contraception: 350 (5.6%)
NIH grants mentioning male circumcision: 197
Patents from NIH grants mentioning male circumcision: 9 (4.6%)
NIH grants mentioning female circumcision: 85
Patents from NIH grants mentioning female circumcision: 0 (0%)
NIH grants mentioning bioterrorism: 5,176
Patents from NIH grants mentioning bioterrorism: 189 (3.7%)
NIH grants mentioning Africa: 8,215
Patents from NIH grants mentioning Africa: 228 (2.8%)