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Yes, why allow companies to choose how to spend their own money? Let's regulate! Why spend $1 billion to help 10 million people when we can spend $1 billion to help 25,000?

>As that'll not happen all by itself because there's less money

Aren’t we both reading the same article about that happening “by itself”?

I think you'd be more likely to get a better outcome by taxing pharmaceuticals (or just make it part of regular taxes businesses in general pay) and using that money to fund research. If the same pharmaceutical wants to apply for a grant to work on a drug, that's fine but I don't think you're likely to get good results by forcing some them to work on a problem they're not already interested in solving.

> pharmaceutical companies should be legally required to spend a certain amount of their research budget on rare diseases

Assuming greed, wouldn't they identify the illnesses with the least likely abilities to cure? (or at the least, least likely to affect their profits, though perhaps they could focus on torpedo'ing a competitor in another area that focuses on a condition they don't)