The World Trade Organization has a provision known as "Compulsory Licensing" which can be used in extraordinary situations such as this. Compulsory licensing is

The World Trade Organization has a provision known as "Compulsory Licensing" which can be used in extraordinary situations such as this. Compulsory licensing is when a government allows someone else to produce the patented product or process without the consent of the patent owner. A few years ago, India's government authorized a drug manufacturer to make and sell a generic copy of a patented Bayer cancer drug because the price charged by Bayer was unaffordable to most of the nation. The US pharmaceutical industry has been up in arms about this, and has been exerting pressure on India to stop this practice. But abuses of the system by Mylan (with EpiPen), Turing (with Daraprim) and others would seem to justify the Indian practice. In fact the US would do well to copy India's model. Citizens should be able to sue corporations for egregious abuses of the patent system, and courts should be able to provide relief in such cases by granting a compulsory license of a drug patent to a generic maker. Read about compulsory licensing here: https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/public_health_faq_e.htm https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/public_health_f... Read about India granting compulsory license to Bayer cancer drug here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/business/global/india-overrules-bayer-allowing-generic-drug.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/business/global/india-over...