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Biogen · Nusinersen Sodium

Spinraza: patented from NIH-funded research, then Medicare paid $4.6M for it in 2025

University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory reported 2 patents on it to NIH as inventions made with NIH grant money.
Patent reported as grant-funded
Reported

$4.6M

Medicare paid, 2025

before rebates

Calculated

$22M

Medicare, 2020–2025

$414K per patient in 2025

Reported

–

Medicare, 2026 Q1

the newest quarter CMS has published

Reported

$24M

NIH grants behind the patents

whole-grant totals, not the drug's cost

The public record, link by link

  1. 1 · Public research

    4 NIH grants to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, University of Massachusetts Med Sch Worcester, $24M in all.

  2. 2 · Patent

    7838657, 8361977, reported to NIH under R01GM042699, R01NS040275, R01NS041621, R37GM042699.

  3. 3 · FDA approval

    Approved Dec 23, 2016, sold by Biogen (NDA 209531).

  4. 4 · Public pays

    Medicare paid $4.6M in 2025 for 11 patients; Medicaid paid $113M in 2024.

What Medicare paid for Spinraza

Medicare Part D and Part B gross spending by year, before manufacturer rebates.
2020: $5.6M20202021: $2.8M20212022: $2.6M20222023: $3.1M20232024: $3.4M20242025: $4.6M2025: $4.6M2025

The grants

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

  • Biochemistry of Pre-mRNA Splicing

    R01GM042699 · Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory · NIGMS · 1989–2026

    $12M

  • Biochemistry of Pre-mRNA Splicing

    R37GM042699 · Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory · NIGMS · 2012–2021

    $7.7M

  • Design of molecules that promote SMN2 exon 7 inclusion

    R01NS041621 · Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory · NINDS · 2001–2005

    $2.0M

  • MOLECULAR PATHOGENESIS OF SPINAL MUSCULAR ATROPHY

    R01NS040275 · University of Massachusetts Med Sch Worcester · NINDS · 2000–2004

    $1.6M

The patents

Patents the FDA lists for this drug that were also reported to NIH as grant-funded inventions.
  • US 7838657

    Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Treatment via Targeting of SMN2 Splice Site Inhibitory Sequences

    Reported by University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School

    FDA-listed expiry Jul 11, 2027
  • US 8361977

    Compositions and methods for modulations of SMN2 splicing

    Reported by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

    FDA-listed expiry Dec 23, 2030

Biogen'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, Biogen received $207K in federal contracts and grants since fiscal 2020, which includes purchases. Biogen's page shows its other products on this list, its federal awards, its PAC's giving and its lobbying. If Biogen 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.