> Re drug development: Why should they get an exception? Because we've decided that drugs need to be safe and effective to get approval. And the process for pr

> Re drug development: Why should they get an exception? Because we've decided that drugs need to be safe and effective to get approval. And the process for proving that a drug is safe and effective is extremely expensive. If you don't reward companies that do the R&D, there just won't be incentives for private industry to develop drugs. If company A spends $1 billion dollars to develop a new compound and then run clinical trials to prove it's safety, and then company B comes along and manufacturers the same drug but says "it's already been tested on patients by company B, so we shouldn't have to bear any of that cost again, but just the cost of manufacturing the drug itself which is trivial" then you'll have a lot of company Bs but no company As. That said, maybe patents aren't the right mechanism for this. Maybe just extend the term on existing exclusivity to something similar to the term that patents cover. > You still get a huge market share/reputation and likely can keep that by being the first to market which is enough reward imo to a product to market. The data doesn't bear this out. When drugs go generic, the brand drugs' market share overwhelmingly drops in favor of people who buy the generic (insurance companies usually force you to by not paying for the brand). There are exceptions for certain types of drugs.