Drugmakers’ Secret Royalty Payments to Fauci’s NIAID Jumped After Pandemic: Report

Anthony Fauci heads to Capitol Hill Monday to testify before the House Select Subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), arrives for a closed-door interview with the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 8, 2024. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Secret royalty payments from drug companies to scientists, researchers, executives, and other employees of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) jumped following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, according to a new report from a nonprofit government watchdog.

“In 2022 and 2023, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies paid the [NIH] a sum of $710,381,160 in third-party royalties. These were payments healthcare companies made to NIH, its leadership, and scientists to license medical inventions created in federal, taxpayer-funded labs,” OpenTheBooks.com reports, in an analysis made public on June 3 as former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.