Originally Posted by gideongallery

reread the chapter i gave you, i never said you would rush the drug companies to push unsafe drugs out.
accelerated advancement would happen due to competition
suppose i created a new drug and starts the testing and patent process (say 5 years)
a scientist sees a small flaw in the formula allowing it to be tweeked that could improve it performance by 200%.

under the current drug system that improvement would not hit the market until after the patent expires on the original drug.(25 years)

assume you got rid of the patents all together a new company would be able to make that small change

they would still have to go thru the 5 years of testing before they would be allowed to sell the super improved version of the drug. Which would mean that there would be 5 years of monopoly profits for the older less efficient version.

The testing time would become the barrier to entry for the product, which would create an insentive to maximize safety since it would be the only barrier to entry for the derived drugs.