I think you'd be more likely to get a better outcome by taxing pharmaceuticals (or just make it part of regular taxes businesses in general pay) and using that

I think you'd be more likely to get a better outcome by taxing pharmaceuticals (or just make it part of regular taxes businesses in general pay) and using that money to fund research. If the same pharmaceutical wants to apply for a grant to work on a drug, that's fine but I don't think you're likely to get good results by forcing some them to work on a problem they're not already interested in solving.