Excellent piece in this month's Commentary on the assault on the pharmaceutical industry. And it doesn't even mention patents! Two good quotes:
"...it is possible that the average consumer of popular culture in 21st-century America will see more negative depictions of pharmaceutical companies than of Islamist terrorists, the Chinese Communist Party, and tyrannical governments in Cuba or North Korea combined. "
and
"An old FDA joke goes, “You never get called up to the Hill for the drug you didn’t approve.”" That's a corollary of my observation that no one knows what drug never made it to market because the patent wasn't granted.
Bottom line is what I've been saying for years: new medicines are good. If you want more of them, stop treating US pharmaceutical companies as if they're evil.