Bernie Sanders: Donald Trump Is Right About Big Pharma

Pharma argues that patents and other monopoly powers are necessary to fund their research, but most new drugs rely also on government-funded research during the development process, and Sanders has proposed other models to encourage innovation. Every year, he introduces legislation to replace patent monopolies with a system of competitive prizes. The better your drug, the bigger your prize, but no government-granted monopoly. It never passes, and Republicans are not its only opponents. President Barack Obama was a staunch ally of big drug companies throughout his tenure in the White House, to the chagrin of humanitarian groups including Doctors Without Borders.