>>My more important point is that if a drug maker had 75 years to exclusively market their compound as opposed to 20 (give or take 8-12 for the current approval process), the cost to the consumer would plummet.
>
>I disagree, for a couple of reasons:
>
>1. Exclusivity gives zero incentive to lower prices. Prices of patent medicines never "plummet" until generics enter the market. That doesn't happen until the patent/exclusivity expires (de jure or de facto).

As I mentioned to Alan, exclusivity of compound is not exclusivity of treatment.

>2. Maybe you're referring to recovery of (admittedly large) up-front R&D costs, over the longer time period. From a finance POV this should be viewed as an amortization. Depending of course on the interest rate chosen, the yearly repayment of that up-front cost will drop much less than 20/75, and likely can't be reasonably considered a "plummet". Anyone who's ever held a mortgage knows the monthly payments don't change that much when changing the amortization period from, say, 25 years to 35 years, let alone to 75 years.

I believe this is a false comparisson. Unlike a mortgage where interest is included, the R&D money laid out to be recovered is not an interest bearing loan. It is a line item expense. In addition, the R&D costs will overlap between compounds so applying a recovery amount to a single compound is not clean. Competition between drug companies is stiff and I have no reason to believe that it would become less so with longer patents. Currently the industry averages around a 16% profit margin. That's not likely to change much with the patent change either. That means the extended life of the patent going into future expected earnings will go somewhere, further R&D & lower prices being 2 of the beneficiaries.

>>In addition, we'd likely see many more of the orphaned drugs being developed as they would have a much better chance at profitability.
>
>As I see it, currently there are several barriers to development of treatments for uncommon or rare conditions:
>
>1. Competition for R&D funding from other treatments that are more "mainstream" and offer a better ROI
>
>2. Relatedly, limitations on the total pool of available R&D funding. My understanding is health care in the US currently consumes something like 12% of GDP, and pharma R&D is a not insignificant fraction of that
>
>3. Limitations on key personnel - there are only so many scientists, doctors etc. capable of undertaking pharma R&D
>
>I don't think extending exclusivity from 20 to 75 years will significantly affect any of the above.

The more I think about it I agree. While I don't think it would hurt, it's unlikely to encourage further work for the reasons you state.