I would be surprised if the cost of running clinical trials paid by sponsors is anywhere near the infrastructure cost needed to develop the institutions which p

I would be surprised if the cost of running clinical trials paid by sponsors is anywhere near the infrastructure cost needed to develop the institutions which perform them. I very much suspect that the price paid to "sponsor funding" for clinical trial research serves more as a barrier to entry to reduce competition in the drug market than it does as a means to cover the cost of running the research (with the enormous infrastructure costs paid via other means that makes running the research possible) ... and if I am right -- us taxpayers pay enormous amounts of money into infrastructure processes that then are used below cost by private companies to capture patent monopolies. Socialized risk, privatized profits. The solution is the same regardless of the behavior of other countries -- reduce the role of government granted monopolies, redirect public subsidies that go toward funding commercial clinical trials into more public development outfits, and commodities the drug production/distribution (as cost is minimal once the drug is discovered and validated for use). If we think private drug companies are actually any good at "picking winners" and dealing with risk of unknowns with respect to drug efficacy -- establish a derivatives market where they can gamble about which drugs in the development pipeline are likely to work -- and see if any of them are still around in a few years ...