I certainly hope patents be damned at a time like this. Maybe once everything is settled they can get a pay out. But if they can conscript human bodies to die in trenches they can borrow fictional gifts to fictional people
That would certainly incentivize pharma to develop the next antiviral, wouldn’t it?
If there's no humans left, they'd have 100% of the market.
That's getting close to false dichotomy: rely on patents or get no research. Maybe a different financial model is required these days. Not everything needs to reach late stage capitalism.
They're still going to get paid a hell of a lot of money if this drug works. It's not just going to be taken from them without any kind of compensation at all from the US Government and others.