Colleges & Universities Are Making A HUGE Payday Off Pharma Price Gouging

Major colleges and universities receive huge federal grants to help develop prescription drugs. But what you may not know is that these colleges also get a cut of the drugs’ profits, which is why they are teaming up with Big Pharma to keep the costs of your medications sky high. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

Order a copy of Mike Papantonio's new book at

Check out our merch by visiting our store

Subscribe to our podcast

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Major colleges and universities receive huge federal grants to help develop prescription drugs. But what you may not know is that these colleges also get a cut of the drug's profits, which is why they're teaming up with the ugliest part of big pharma to keep the cost of your medications as high as possible, because they're making a percentage on those costs. I've got Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins with me to talk about this. Wow. How has, I just, when I saw this, I'm wondering how has UCLA, NYU, Stanford University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, how have they been under the radar in this? To where we didn't know that they are the little gremlins, the secret little gremlins that are doing business with the ugliest part of big pharma who wants to keep drugs as high as they can, who wants to keep drug prices as high as they can. How have we missed this? I mean, we do this every day.

I know, and I love that you're saying that because that is the exact same reaction I had with this story. We've covered this story for 20 years. And I learned so much from this article that I didn't know, and it's shocking to me.

Farron, until you gave me this story, I would've said.

Right.

But these are university administrators that are part of keeping the cost of drugs sky high, right?

Yeah. Because what happens here, we've talked about this part, obviously the federal government comes in and they say, hey, college, UCLA, because that's one of the worst offenders here.

Oh, good God.

UCLA, we've got millions of dollars we want to give to you because you've got brilliant scientists and they're working on a cure for this cancer. So here's millions of dollars, UCLA, you make this cure, it's taxpayer money, but you get it for free. UCLA goes and does it. So, okay, we've got this wonderful drug, and here's the part we didn't know. They do sell it to pharmaceutical companies, which everybody knows, but the university keeps the patent.

Right.

And every time somebody has to pay $200,000 a month for this cancer treatment, that university is getting a rather sizable percentage.

Oh, yeah, you think?

Of those drug sales. So in addition to getting your tax dollars, they get a cut of the drug sales.

That's the ugliest part of it. The university has gotten your tax dollars to do the research. Okay. Then they say, I got this patent and what is it, Xtandi?

Xtandi. I believe that's how it's pronounced.

Yeah. Okay. So it's a prostate cancer drug that is sometimes the only thing keeping a person alive that it costs, did I, is it 2 million a year? Is it $200,000?

$200,000.

$200,000 a year for that person to buy that drug. And the college sold it for $520 million to the drug company. And the drug company says, hey, thank you for that. We're gonna give you royalties. So secretly the university is trying to stay under the radar, and they're trying to be the lobbyist to keep drugs high. It's not just, UCLA by far is the worst offender. Somebody ought to go there and just clean house. But it's also Chapel Hill. It's also NYU. It's Stanford, that they have a direct interest in making sure that people have to pay as much as possible for a drug that might keep 'em alive.

Right. And the colleges have offered the dumbest and most insulting excuse for this. They say, well, we use this money because we gotta keep up the grounds. We gotta keep up the buildings and we give people scholarships to come here, and this helps pay for that. No.