[refurb]

Say $1B/yr. Then you tell the FDA: every year, pick the 50 most promising drug candidates. Publicly fund the clinical trials, and the public will own the patent.

What do you think the FDA knows about running clinical trials? They are obviously experts when it comes to regulatory aspects, but what about trial recruitment, monitoring, supply chain, etc? And what about the educational side? Doctors need someone to talk to, to explain the data, to answer a multitude of questions.

It would take FAR more than $1B per year to have the FDA so all that. The Pharma industry spends $70B plus on R&D each year and they already have all the infrastructure.

And don’t for one second believe that getting a drug to market is as simple as funding clinical trials. There is a ton of upkeep once approved - phase 4 trials, manufacturing tweaks, educating physicians and customers.

2019 FDA budget was $5.7B. I’d guess you’d need closer to 20x to replicate the work the pharma industry is doing, just on the R&D side, let alone everything else.