The 1980 Bayh–Dole Act8 allowed NIAID—and Dr. Fauci personally—to file patents on the hundreds of new drugs that his agency-funded PIs were incubating, and then to license those drugs to pharmaceutical companies and collect royalties on their sales. NIAID’s drug development enterprise quickly eclipsed HHS’s regulatory function. Millions of dollars began flowing in from drug royalties to NIH and to NIAID’s high-level personnel, including Dr. Fauci—further blurring the boundaries between public health and Pharma profits.
