I think what you're failing to consider (in the particular case of pharma) is the case where government doesn't dictate prices, but limits patents to reasonable

I think what you're failing to consider (in the particular case of pharma) is the case where government doesn't dictate prices, but limits patents to reasonable maximum terms and only offers reimbursement for the cheapest market alternative. The limitation in patent durations would disallow corporations milking old inventions and would incentivise them to keep innovating. It would also allow more competition, because the formulas end up in the public domain quicker, enabling actual market efficiency through improving production processes and so on. Parallels could be drawn to the entertainment and software sectors. Stimulating the lowest market price would counteract predatory tenfold price hikes by allowing competitors to produce a generic variant at reasonable prices and outcompeting the bad behaviour. The current regulatory framework incentivises big conglomarates to be anti-consumer because that's where the money lies. At the end of the day, we're talking about people's health.