Empaveli: patented from NIH-funded research, then Medicare paid $27M for it in 2025

University of Pennsylvania reported 3 patents on it to NIH as inventions made with NIH grant money.

Patent reported as grant-fundedOrphan drug

Reported

$27M

Medicare paid, 2025

before rebates

Calculated

$101M

Medicare, 2020–2025

$359K per patient in 2025

Reported

$8.4M

Medicare, 2026 Q1

the newest quarter CMS has published

Reported

$7.5M

NIH grants behind the patents

whole-grant totals, not the drug's cost

The public record, link by link

1 · Public research
2 NIH grants to University of Pennsylvania, $7.5M in all.
2 · Patent
7888323, 7989589, 9169307, reported to NIH under R01AI030040, R01GM062134.
3 · FDA approval
Approved May 14, 2021, sold by Apellis Pharmaceuticals (NDA 215014); orphan-drug exclusivity runs to Jul 28, 2032.
4 · Public pays
Medicare paid $27M in 2025 for 75 patients; Medicaid paid $11M in 2024.

What Medicare paid for Empaveli

Medicare Part D and Part B gross spending by year, before manufacturer rebates.

Plus $8.4M in the first quarter of 2026, for 73 patients.

The grants

Totals are everything NIH paid on each grant since 1985. A grant usually funded more than this one invention.

Structural analysis of the third component of complement
R01AI030040 · University of Pennsylvania · NIAID · 1993–2016
$5.1M
Design of Novel Complement Inhibitors
R01GM062134 · University of Pennsylvania · NIGMS · 2001–2010
$2.5M

The patents

Patents the FDA lists for this drug that were also reported to NIH as grant-funded inventions.

US 7888323
Potent compstatin analogs
Reported by University of Pennsylvania
FDA-listed expiry Dec 4, 2027
US 7989589
Compstatin Analogs with Improved Activity#2
Reported by University of Pennsylvania
FDA-listed expiry Dec 4, 2027
US 9169307
Potent Compstatin Analogs
Reported by University of Pennsylvania
FDA-listed expiry Nov 18, 2027

Apellis Pharmaceuticals's side

Drug makers pay for the clinical trials that take a compound from the lab to FDA approval, and they pay royalties on licensed patents. Those terms are not public. Apellis Pharmaceuticals's page shows its other products on this list, its federal awards, its PAC's giving and its lobbying. If Apellis Pharmaceuticals wants to add its account, we will publish it here.

How this is built. A product is listed for one of two public records. Either NIH's Technology Transfer office lists it as an FDA-approved product built on a license from an NIH, CDC or FDA lab, or a patent the FDA lists for the drug was reported to NIH as an invention made with NIH grant money, as the Bayh-Dole Act requires. We then add what Medicare Part D, Part B and Medicaid paid for each product, and for each company, the federal grants and contracts it received, its PAC's donations and its lobbying.

What the numbers mean. Medicare and Medicaid figures are gross spending before the rebates drug makers pay back, which are confidential. Hospital-administered therapies such as CAR-T cell treatments are mostly paid under Medicare Part A and do not appear in these files. "NIH grants" is everything NIH paid on the grants a patent was reported under, from 1985 on; a grant usually paid for more than one invention, so it is not the cost of the drug. Federal contracts include purchases, such as vaccine doses, as well as research. Companies also paid for the clinical trials that took these products to approval. None of these figures shows that public money set a price or bought a decision.

Sources: NIH Technology Transfer: FDA-approved products licensed from NIH, CDC and FDA labs; NIH RePORTER patents reported under NIH grants (from iEdison); NIH RePORTER project funding; FDA Orange Book patent, exclusivity and product files; CMS Medicare Part D and Part B Spending by Drug (annual and quarterly); CMS Medicaid Spending by Drug; USAspending.gov federal grants and contracts. Updated 2026-11-06.