[eiaoa]

Or, a government could just say...

Why not both? I'm serious. It seems like a good idea to promote competition and put a ceiling on the prices of essential medicines based on the global market. 10% above the lowest price may be a bit aggressive, but something must be done to stop these 10,000% markups we're seeing now.

[r00fus]

Cue pharma & equipment companies complaining about R&D costs for patents and approval processes.

Of course, they still complain and somehow shoehorn busdev & marketing costs into the R&D bucket anyway.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

What R&D costs are there for existing, well established, proven emergency medicines for their current uses?