> Total spending on clinical trials is estimated to be about $25 billion. Not chump change, but easily fundable, and ridiculously easy to offset with the cost s

> Total spending on clinical trials is estimated to be about $25 billion. Not chump change, but easily fundable, and ridiculously easy to offset with the cost savings in terms of Medicare. You're assuming that the government is as good at choosing research directions, choosing which entities to bring to trial, and running the trials as private industry. My bet would be that this is not true. > Also, it's wrong to suggest that the costs are borne by the "private sector" when all of that private sector money is coming from monopoly rents handed to them by the government. A lot of new drugs come from start up pharma companies, who are exclusively funded by investors, not the government. They don't see much, if any money from the government until they bring a drug to market. Established companies may use a mixture of funding sources to offset their development costs. Also, the notion that drug companies are purely profiting from the government is absurd. You're completely forgetting about private insurance company spending and the ex-US market, which account for enormous amounts of money.