>Pumping generics is one of those cases that's clearly abusive. With regard to the specific problem, if you try to limit their profits pharmas will simply take

>Pumping generics is one of those cases that's clearly abusive. With regard to the specific problem, if you try to limit their profits pharmas will simply take their ball and go home - they won't produce it. For a real-world example of this, you can no longer get the Lyme Disease vaccine for humans - nobody makes it anymore, you can only get it for the veterinary market. Pharma needs outright nationalization or competition from the public sector at the very least. We've played these games before where monopolistic private companies threaten to flip the switch on critical services. The solution to this one is the same as it was to companies that refused to provide mail service or electricity when it "wasn't profitable enough". Nationalize them and provide it at cost. It's simple and proven. Hell, it's likely that the mere threat of it would be enough to panic pharma execs into playing ball. A great deal of pharma profits comes from taking research from the public sector and commercializing it anyway. Cutting the fat from the process (executive salaries, marketing, bribes to doctors) would be vastly improve the efficiency of the system. Even if research done in the private sector were 40% less efficient than that done by Pharma companies (and there's no evidence that it's any less efficient), by slashing marketing costs to zero we'd still come out ahead by nationalizing them.