Not very stimulating

Only a minuscule amount of the $10.4 billion in stimulus money that NIH's Office of Extramural Research is handing out is going to private sector companies. NIH has granted about $7 billion thus far and will distribute the rest by Sept. 30 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.

Almost all of the 18,498 grants awarded by Aug. 18 are going to research institutes, hospitals and universities. About 2% went to life sciences companies. The average award is about $380,000...