[rossdavidh]

The issue is who is going to pay for the extensive testing required to get from lab to hospital. That takes years, and lot of organizational skill, and a lot of money. If a drug has gone off-patent, all that is already done, so many companies will be glad to manufacture it. But for new treatments, somebody has to push it through clinical trials, with the (quite substantial) risk that something which looked good in the lab fails to work in larger studies, or has unforeseen side effects.

[jdironman]

Seems like a legitimate place for our tax dollars to fall in comparison to where they normally do.