Erleada: patented from NIH-funded research, then Medicare paid $2.08B for it in 2025

University of California Los Angeles reported 4 patents on it to NIH as inventions made with NIH grant money.

Patent reported as grant-funded

Reported

$2.08B

Medicare paid, 2025

before rebates

Calculated

$6.60B

Medicare, 2020–2025

$108K per patient in 2025

Reported

$537M

Medicare, 2026 Q1

the newest quarter CMS has published

Reported

$43M

NIH grants behind the patents

whole-grant totals, not the drug's cost

The public record, link by link

1 · Public research
NIH grant to University of California Los Angeles, $43M in all.
2 · Patent
8445507, 8802689, 9388159, 9987261, reported to NIH under P50CA092131.
3 · FDA approval
Approved Feb 14, 2018, sold by Johnson & Johnson (NDA 210951).
4 · Public pays
Medicare paid $2.08B in 2025 for 19,179 patients; Medicaid paid $52M in 2024.

What Medicare paid for Erleada

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

Plus $537M in the first quarter of 2026, for 14,561 patients.

The grants

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

UCLA SPORE in Prostate Cancer
P50CA092131 · University of California Los Angeles · NCI · 2002–2023
$43M

The patents

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

US 8445507
ANDROGEN RECEPTOR MODULATOR FOR THE TREATMENT OF PROSTATE CANCER AND ANDROGEN RECEPTOR-ASSOCIATED DISEASES
Reported by University of California Los Angeles
FDA-listed expiry Feb 14, 2032
US 8802689
ANDROGEN RECEPTOR MODULATOR FOR THE TREATMENT OF PROSTATE CANCER AND ANDROGEN RECEPTOR-ASSOCIATED DISEASES
Reported by University of California Los Angeles
FDA-listed expiry Mar 27, 2027
US 9388159
PREPARATION AND ACTIVITY OF NOVEL PROSTATE CANCER DRUGS
Reported by University of California Los Angeles
FDA-listed expiry Mar 27, 2027
US 9987261
ANDROGEN RECEPTOR MODULATOR FOR THE TREATMENT OF PROSTATE CANCER AND ANDROGEN RECEPTOR-ASSOCIATED DISEASES
Reported by University of California Los Angeles
FDA-listed expiry Mar 27, 2027

Johnson & Johnson'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. Separately, Johnson & Johnson received $428M in federal contracts and grants since fiscal 2020, which includes purchases. Johnson & Johnson's page shows its other products on this list, its federal awards, its PAC's giving and its lobbying. If Johnson & Johnson 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.