I had exactly this argument with someone. It broke down to me figuring out where most of the new medicines are developed and it was something like 98%+ of medic

I had exactly this argument with someone. It broke down to me figuring out where most of the new medicines are developed and it was something like 98%+ of medicines are developed by universities with public funds. Of "new" medicines developed by actual pharmaceutical companies about half are just jamming two medicines that ought to be safe together into one. Combine that with how most of the that R&D budget is to get drugs certified by the FDA and not to invent new ones and I fail to see how patents help the situation. It might be that without patents pharma companies might feel compelled to innovate more to stay ahead of their competition, but that is pure conjecture.