Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
As has been said, though, the revenue from the small proportion of drugs that work has to fund the much larger number that don't. Without patent protection, there would be no new drugs.
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This is a total non sequitur. It does not follow from the fact that pharma will not be able to charge monopoly prices (because there will no longer a be government guaranteed monopoly) that 'there would be no new drugs.' Research scientists are going to move to mars? Public universities will shutter their doors? I think the over all volume of new drugs may go down but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Although even that is not a foregone conclusion. There could be an even greater incentive to innovate to stay ahead of the competition and establish market dominance.