I fundamentally attribute the high price of drugs to the high cost of developing drugs, not to IP granting monopolies. I agree with you more on this than I dis

I fundamentally attribute the high price of drugs to the high cost of developing drugs, not to IP granting monopolies. I agree with you more on this than I disagree. Biology is hard. It is getting harder to find new pharmaceutical interventions that treat currently untreatable conditions, or that are enough better than old ones to repay developing them. I don't think that government involvement can change the shape of the cost curve for new drug development. I think that government involvement may be able to reduce costs of completing drug development, essentially because it doesn't need profit on top of R&D costs. (Not reducing the big-O cost of drug development, but improving constant factors, if you'll permit the mixed metaphor.) You seem to think that the costs of reproducing private development infrastructure would be prohibitive, and that no private company will let the government pay for use of its infrastructure toward the development of drugs that are born patent-free. You may be right about the costs of infrastructure. As for the latter, a government agency could offer quite a bit of money to become that partner with institutional knowledge and existing infrastructure. (If you think that private drug companies are in a prisoner's dilemma regarding cooperation with a government looking to undermine their long term profitability, you might substitute "defector" for "partner.") This has to be my last post of the day but I've enjoyed your responses and perspective.