Pharmaceutical companies have long argued that the incentive for creating new drugs is that they retain exclusive rights to sell their inventions for a period of time that s long enough to recover the cost of their investment, and then make a profit off the venture. Bringing a new drug to market takes over a decade and costs about $1.3 billion, according to Josh Bloom, director of chemical and pharmaceutical sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Bloom said in a Wall Street Journal piece from January 2012 that the length of time drugmakers retain exclusive rights has declined from 17 years in the late '60s to 11 years.
