What Have We Learned About Incentive Mechanisms?

Abstract This comment assesses the evidence from four papers on the development process for four breakthrough drugs or treatments. The comment notes that the papers show all the key breakthroughs in the development process were financed either through the National Institutes of Health or various foundations or charities, not drug companies looking to be compensated through patent monopolies. It argues that this evidence suggests patent monopolies are an unnecessary distortion that results in high drug prices and creates perverse incentives. Expanded public funding could replace patent monopolies, allowing new drugs to be sold at free market prices, ending the problem of high drug prices blocking access.