Absolutely. The main structural problem is the blanket protection from the market that the people/govt offer to the pharma companies. Many shills continue to a

Absolutely. The main structural problem is the blanket protection from the market that the people/govt offer to the pharma companies. Many shills continue to argue that this is necessary for pharma to make progress. The problem is that this a quantitative question -- how much protection in $$ should pharma companies receive that would still not get in the way of real progress? -- is given a blanket non-quantitative answer by fiat. The answer is neither known for certain nor a constant of nature, it changes with time and situation. Any mechanism addressing this problem should have a fast feedback loop and pretty much the only scalable mechanism that we have for such feedback on economic affairs is the market. Rather than subverting the market, one should actively involve it to create an efficient market where the people/govt and the pharma companies negotiate the level of protection that they can both agree on. Patents are a mechanism that largely nukes this negotiation completely in favor of the pharma companies. A parting thought borrowed from Upton Sinclair : if the justification for patent protection is high dev costs, it only ensures that the dev costs will be kept high to enjoy the (dis-proportionate) protection.