[fspeech]

Some of the existing dysfunctional drug market dynamics can be addressed through a break up of the vertical integration: companies can choose to be the R&D/manufacturer in which case they are not allowed to market to doctors/consumers; or they can choose to be a marketer/distributor. Manufacturers must treat marketers non-discriminatorily.

This way we can separate the wheat from the chaff. Truly revolutionary products can still charge high patent-protected prices by their exclusive manufacturers. OTOH marketing driven products with weak perceived advantages won't be able to charge the high prices as they do now. In the Epi-pen case, the patent owner will still be the exclusive manufacturer. But if they raise the price by 400% to all the marketers the marketers may choose to promote other generic products instead.

[tamana]

Epipen is a patneted standard. It's akin to patenting HTTP and the pretending we could all switch if we want.

[fspeech]

Under my scenario of separation of the marketing and the manufacturing entities, there would be much less incentive to create such a monopolized standard in the first place. The marketers would worry about getting into a jam like this. On the other hand if the invention is truly essential, they would have no choice.