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.

Transcript:

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

Mike Papantonio: 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.

Farron Cousins: 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.

Mike Papantonio: Farron, until you gave me this story, I would’ve said.

Farron Cousins: Right.

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

Farron Cousins: 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.

Mike Papantonio: Oh, good God.

Farron Cousins: 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.

Mike Papantonio: Right.

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

Mike Papantonio: Oh, yeah, you think?

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

Mike Papantonio: 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?

Farron Cousins: Xtandi. I believe that’s how it’s pronounced.

Mike Papantonio: 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?

Farron Cousins: $200,000.

Mike Papantonio: $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.

Farron Cousins: 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. What helps pay for all of those things is the fact that you’ve jacked up your tuition prices 7000% in the last 20 years. Those students who are not on scholarships, are already paying for those that get the scholarships and everything else. You’re not paying your professors, basically not paying ’em living wages because you’re getting rid of the real professors, bringing in the adjuncts you pay $5,000 a semester to.

Mike Papantonio: The adjuncts who, oh, by the way, work for the pharmaceutical industry.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. And so this story, colleges are all about money these days. There is no other way to say it. It’s not about education. It’s about the money.

Mike Papantonio: Okay. Down the hall there at UCLA, they’re teaching humanities, right? They’re teaching humanities, the interactions of how we should interact among ourselves. They’re teaching ethics. They’re teaching philosophy. And they are making sure that while they’re teaching those things, they’re making sure that a person has to pay $130 per pill, and they need them every day, year round, they need $130 per pill just so he can stay alive. Now, you tell me there ain’t a problem there.

Farron Cousins: And by the way, most of the time, they actually sell these patents to companies overseas who then contract through the major pharmaceuticals, your Pfizers, your AstraZenecas here in the US to make it for them and basically ship it. So Pfizer and them, they don’t have to do much at all. But then these other companies, usually in India is where they will buy the patents, they also say, okay, well, you can make generics because now we also have this. And those generic companies recently approached the US government and said, hey, listen, this Xtandi drug, we can give it to you for three bucks a pill. Instead of your, you know.

Mike Papantonio: $130 a pill.

Farron Cousins: Right. They said $3 a pill. Cut down your cost by hundreds of thousands a month. And they said, no. No.

Mike Papantonio: Well, why?

Farron Cousins: They literally just said, no.

Mike Papantonio: But why did they say that? They said it because these ghouls, these ghoulish grim reapers that are secretly hiding in the halls of Congress are the universities that are making money. And we just, only thing we talk about all the time is the pharmaceutical industry, which is bad enough. You talk about a bunch of death ghouls, they’re filled up with death ghouls. But then you add the university, the people that are supposed to be kinder and gentler, supposed to be teaching our kids the idea of decency and ethics and humanities and how we should teach each other. They are making a killing off the death of people.

Farron Cousins: Yeah.

Mike Papantonio: No other way to put it.

Farron Cousins: Ring of Fire founder and host of America’s Lawyer, Mike Papantonio has a new book came out this week called, “Suspicious Activity.” Like his other books before it, this book actually deals with real legal cases that Mike Papantonio has handled, but in a fictionalized way. The book follows the character of Nick Deketomis that Papantonio first introduced in his book, “Law and Disorder,” and it carries on the story that began in “Law and Disorder” through “Law and Vengeance,” “Law and Addiction,” “Inhuman Trafficking,” and now “Suspicious Activity.” This book, in particular, deals with the financial institutions that have helped launder money for terrorist organizations, which of course is a topic we have covered extensively here on Ring of Fire. So if you’re a follower of Mike Papantonio’s books, or if this is your first one, you can get your copy of “Suspicious Activity” now. Just go to MikePapantonio.com and place your order. And if you haven’t already, check out Mike’s other books, also available on MikePapantonio.com.