[hakfoo]

They complain about the cost of research, development, and approval... so why not migrate those aspects to state entities which are not beholden to a profit motive?

Drug manufacturing is a very different business than drug discovery. We bundle them together hoping that the profits in one will bankroll the massive loss risk in the other.

But it doesn't work-- we end up with situations like this-- drugs that don't cover their upfront R&D costs, and also issues with questionable market-oriented priorities (I tend to think of the galaxy of me-too erectile-dysfunction medications that hit the market almost immediately after Viagra)

If we shoved a bunch of research dollars into public labs and universities, they could manage research, development, and certification, with the goal to produce a non-patented product that the manufacturers can compete to produce at scale as cheaply and reliably as possible. If the up-front science is paid for, maybe that 1,000 patients are economically viable to produce the actual pills.