Developing and getting approval for a new drug takes two decades and costs hundreds of millions. Part of that surely is patent cost buy the main parts are testi

Developing and getting approval for a new drug takes two decades and costs hundreds of millions. Part of that surely is patent cost buy the main parts are testing, animal and human trials and the approval process. The 'innovation' lie in telecomms (that you need high margins to assure innovation and investment) is surely not true but pharmaceuticals really are expensive to get from R&D to market. Companies with a big seller where the patent protection runs out, and that didn't succeedem to get another big drug to market, often sell themselves as they expect to go bankrupt or have to sell off their half-developed portfolio, which amounts to the same thing. Of course all a bit different for the big drug makers. So maintaining the current system without patents seems difficult. But an option would of course be to shift the system - public investment for research and promising trials and then the result is free to use (or protected only for a short period).