Patents are a trade: you get an 18 year monopoly for public disclosure of how your innovation works. In societies that lack patent protection, much innovation

Patents are a trade: you get an 18 year monopoly for public disclosure of how your innovation works. In societies that lack patent protection, much innovation becomes a trade secret guarded against public use for generations, think China and the silk trade. By removing patents, you remove the incentive to make public how your medicine works. That, actually sounds scarier to me than temporary price mark ups.