It's hard to know exactly how effective a drug like that will be before testing it, at which point most of the development cost will have already been spent, an

It's hard to know exactly how effective a drug like that will be before testing it, at which point most of the development cost will have already been spent, and there's no point holding it back from market. And a large number of these drugs being developed over time has really increased survival rates for various cancers Marketing budgets aren't really relevant. They wouldn't spend money on marketing if it didn't bring them even more money in return. It's not like that money is being taken from money that would otherwise go to research. If anything it increases the amount of money which can go to research. > I think that direct NIH grants to develop drugs with the IP left in the public domain is a better approach I don't think these models are mutually exclusive. You can have government research and private research at the same time. It's not like there is limited amount of research that can be done, and private companies are hogging it all. And there are things like antibiotic research, which you mentioned, that aren't profitable but are necessary.