I'd much rather eliminate patent protections, but they do serve limited value.. the licensing restrictions for medications after 5 years at market is mainly to limit patent protections, while still providing some profit. I didn't say the company couldn't make agreements for higher, or lower amounts via contract arrangement.

Patent protections, in this case, and many others actually exceed the value they provide to larger society, so I'm in favor of limiting them in this case as opposed to removing them entirely. I understand there are a great amount of expense, but that is usually recouped within 3-5 years, and often in medication less than that.

Earlier competition will lead to better pricing structures that are less restrictive over marginalized costs. In effect benefitting consumers.

The key point in the constitution behind copyright and patents are "limited" exclusivity... those limits don't always have to be larger... sometimes they need to be smaller, and some industries aren't the same as others.