Most drug funding comes from the government

. One strand of research examines who funds what. The most comprehensive research on funding suggests that the U.S. government, primarily through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provides about one-third of total U.S. biomedical research funding, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies about 50 percent, with the medical device industry, state and local governments, and foundations accounting for the rest. 18 However, there is a rough division of labor, with the vast majority of pharmaceutical R&D focused on clinical research, and the majority of NIH funding focused on "basic" research. . Cross-industry firm surveys consistently suggest stronger linkages between public sector and private sector research activities in pharmaceuticals than in other sectors. 19 In the largest such survey, Cohen and colleagues suggest that in the drug industry 41 percent of R&D projects used research findings from the public sector, 35 percent instruments and techniques from public science, and 12 percent were based on prototypes from public sector research. 20 Overall, the surveys suggest a larger enabling role for the public sector in drugs than other industries, though only 10-15 percent of projects are based directly on public sector research, or build on public sector prototypes. . Another approach uses detailed case studies of important drugs to assess, through histories and/ or interviews, the role of the public sector. 21 Each of these studies suggests the public sector has a role in the vast majority of important drugs. However, very rarely is the public or private sector solely responsible. . Analyses of drugs' key patents suggest that the public sector did enough work to obtain a patent associated with the final product (listed on the FDA's Orange Book, see below) for about 20 percent of "important" drugs. 22 This "direct" role of the public sector in principle can be traced through government interest statements which must list any government grants or contracts directly supporting the research on the invention. 23 . Bibliometric analyses tracing publication inputs for FDA approved drugs 24 and publications cited in the patents on FDA approved drugs 25 suggest that nearly all important drugs have publication links to NIH or other government funded research. . Econometric analyses relating variation in NIH funding to drug development suggest a statistically significant increase in drugs in trials 26 and approved drugs 27 following increases in NIH funding in the relevant area.