Princeton Drug Royalties Spark Suit Over Tax Exemption
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Edward C. Taylor’s fascination as a Princeton University chemistry professor with butterfly wing pigmentation led him to invent a compound that Eli Lilly & Co. turned into the $2.5 billion-a-year cancer drug Alimta.
Princeton, the fifth-richest U.S. university, patented Taylor’s invention, and the school reaped $524 million from 2005 to 2012 in license income, mostly from Lilly. The school used part of the money to build a new chemistry building and pay $118 million to faculty through 2011 beyond their salaries.