Olumiant: patented from NIH-funded research, then Medicare paid $48M for it in 2025

Columbia University New York Morningside reported 2 patents on it to NIH as inventions made with NIH grant money.

Patent reported as grant-funded

Reported

$48M

Medicare paid, 2025

before rebates

Calculated

$171M

Medicare, 2020–2025

$25K per patient in 2025

Reported

$13M

Medicare, 2026 Q1

the newest quarter CMS has published

Reported

$3.1M

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 Columbia University Health Sciences, $3.1M in all.
2 · Patent
9737469, 11806555, reported to NIH under R01AR056016, R21AR061881.
3 · FDA approval
Approved May 31, 2018, sold by Eli Lilly (NDA 207924).
4 · Public pays
Medicare paid $48M in 2025 for 1,909 patients; Medicaid paid $33M in 2024.

What Medicare paid for Olumiant

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

Plus $13M in the first quarter of 2026, for 1,403 patients.

The grants

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

Genome Wide Association Studies in Alopecia Areata
R01AR056016 · Columbia University Health Sciences · NIAMS · 2008–2012
$2.7M
Identification of Alopecia Areata Biomarkers in Skin and Blood
R21AR061881 · Columbia University Health Sciences · NIAMS · 2011–2012
$398K

The patents

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

US 9737469
Methods for Treating Hair Loss Disorders
Reported by Columbia University New York Morningside
FDA-listed expiry Nov 2, 2031
US 11806555
METHODS FOR TREATING HAIR LOSS DISORDERS
Reported by Columbia University New York Morningside
FDA-listed expiry Nov 2, 2031

Eli Lilly'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, Eli Lilly received $4.67B in federal contracts and grants since fiscal 2020, which includes purchases. Eli Lilly's page shows its other products on this list, its federal awards, its PAC's giving and its lobbying. If Eli Lilly 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.