Princeton Sues Princeton for a Share of Its Patent Millions

Residents want a piece of the school’s millions in patent income

Princeton University campus in Princeton, N.J.Photograph by Craig Warga/Bloomberg

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By David Voreacos and Susan Decker

September 20, 2013 at 4:12 AM UTC

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This article is part of the September 23, 2013 issue of businessweek.

More than three decades ago, Princeton University professor Edward Taylor invented the compound that became the anticancer drug Alimta. The years he spent working with Eli Lilly paid off in 2004, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Alimta as a treatment for mesothelioma. The $2.5 billion-a-year drug is used in more than 100 countries, and it made up 11 percent of Lilly’s sales last year.