The only issue with that from my limited knowledge of the generics industry is that it doesn't account for legal spend by generics firms. The patent wars are wa

The only issue with that from my limited knowledge of the generics industry is that it doesn't account for legal spend by generics firms. The patent wars are waged in courtrooms by generics firms fighting branded firms. The big generics firms have massive legal budgets and expertise on all the arcana of patent law. You could certainly try to make a small scale manufacturing firm to sell some expensive generics drugs at cost, and that could be a good idea (some hospitals are doing it), but these types of firms would probably not be able to develop "first inclass" generics without legal and administrative expertise Until the last few years, you really wanted to be the first genetic. These first generics get 180 days of market exclusivity I think as an incentive to do all the grunt work of challenging patents. If you were later to market it was really hard to make money Which has led to a situation where some generics markets have found themselves with only a few generics makers. These manufacturers have realized it and have been increasing price. So a co-op could be viable for markets like this. But you would need to do some r&d work for each generic you develop to show it is bioequivalent and get your manufacturing facility registered with fda, etc However I don't think it accounts for much of the higher per capita rx drug spend in the US (unfortunately can't find source)