The patent system is very badly designed for pharma. The cost in pharma is in the clinical trials, but the patent is awarded for creating the drug -- long befor

The patent system is very badly designed for pharma. The cost in pharma is in the clinical trials, but the patent is awarded for creating the drug -- long before the trials. Rather than being a reward for brining an innovation to market, the monopoly (patent) is awarded long before the bulk of the work has been done. No reward is offered in the patent system for doing the hard and expensive part -- proving efficacy and safety. But the patent means that even if you choose not to spend the money to bring it to market, nobody else is allowed to. Something like 95% of pharmaceuticals fail to be effective and safe. In other words, 95% of pharmaceutical patents are for inventions that ultimately don't work. "A patent for something that does not work" ought not be allowed -- the pharmaceutical patent should only be awarded after efficacy and safety has been proved (incentivising the hard part).