Successful drugs, or successful drugs that are eligible for patent protection? I imagine[1] it would be much harder to turn a profit on the massive upfront cost

Successful drugs, or successful drugs that are eligible for patent protection? I imagine[1] it would be much harder to turn a profit on the massive upfront costs if you immediately had to compete with the existing manufacturers at generic-scale prices. It seems like it might be useful (assuming it isn't already) to separate the rights concerning drug discovery and those demonstrating efficacy/safety to allow costs to be recovered. Then again, it needs to be weighed against the inevitable rent-seeking that pharma has a name for. [1] but don't have any evidence handy to back it up, so ICBW.