Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Public investment in biomedical research plays a critical role in shaping technological innovation, yet the pathways linking funded research to patenting outcomes differ across technological platforms. This study examines how National Institutes of Health (NIH) investment in polymer-based drug-delivery research aligns with downstream patent publications and whether translational patterns vary by polymer class. NIH RePORTER records from 2015–2025 were integrated with patent publication data from The Lens to construct a polymer–year panel covering six major drug-delivery polymers, with patent activity measured by publication year. Descriptive analyses quantified funding, project counts, and patent publications by polymer, while correlation and lag analyses assessed temporal alignment between public research investment and patenting activity. Count-based regression models with polymer fixed effects and calendar-year trends were used to estimate next-year patent publications. Across the study period, NIH funded 627 polymer drug-delivery projects totaling $246.6 million, corresponding to 6,642 patent publications. At the portfolio level, NIH funding exhibited a moderate positive association with patent applications, although the strongest temporal alignment appeared at a negative lag, suggesting that patent activity may precede rather than follow changes in NIH investment. Polymer-level analyses indicated heterogeneous timing, including strong same-year alignment for hydrogels and delayed alignment for several degradable carrier polymers. In regression models, polymer identity and time trends were stronger predictors of patent publications than funding magnitude or project count after accounting for platform effects. These findings highlight the importance of platform characteristics in shaping research-to-patent translation and suggest that innovation-oriented funding strategies should consider material maturity and development pathways rather than relying solely on aggregate investment levels.</p>