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TOP 10 TAKEAWAYS

1. OpenTheBooks.com has been locked in a years-long litigation battle with the NIH over royalty transparency. So far, our organization has unlocked 3,477 pages of royalty data, including scientists receiving royalties and companies paying royalties. Individual royalty amounts are still redacted. 
2. Auditors have found $2.685 billion paid to NIH scientists and sub-agencies (like the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIAID) by licensees from FY 2010-2023.  
3. About 1,650 companies were named as licensees, and over 2,600 scientists were named as inventors receiving payments. 
4. In over 2,000 instances inventors' names were redacted from the payment information, raising questions about the nature of the relationship between those inventors, the NIH, and the licensees.
5. Non-U.S. licensees outnumbered U.S.-based licensees in 2023, the first time since records begin in 2006.
6. Some licensees have raised serious concerns of foreign influence over NIH. Nearly 40 Chinese companies have licensed NIH patents since 2010, including WuXi AppTec, which has recently come under scrutiny from Congress for its alleged links with the Chinese military.  
7. Scientists receiving royalties hold positions of power and influence at NIH, such as three-time National Cancer Institute Acting Director Douglas Lowy, whose patents were used in HPV vaccines.
8. The top royalty recipient in our thirteen years of data, with over 1,000 payments, is Melinda Hollingshead, former Chief of Biological Testing Branch, Developmental therapeutics Program at the National Cancer Institute. Before retiring this year Hollingshead worked at the NCI campus in Frederick, Maryland—the same location as Fort Detrick, a U.S. Army installation involved in the U.S. biological defense program. 
9. 44 NIH scientists received between one and nine payments from Moderna, including Vaccine Research Center director John Mascola, and deputy director Barney Graham.  
10. Royalty Transparency Act, which passed unanimously out of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee this year, would require scientists to disclose royalty payments, providing needed sunshine on the intersection between corporate and government funding and influence at the NIH.