Won't you just get similar cost in the form of bureaucracy?
In fact the opposite is more likely. If pharma is nationalised - or better, internationalised - it would become economic to fund solutions for common conditions that aren't currently considered profitable.
Have you seen the DoD and other gov entity contracting? Perhaps we can expect the same level of contracting that the DoD has today, outsourcing those expensive mistakes to others, for them to take the blame/fall/
I can see a situation where pharma bureaucrats refuse to approve or pursue things, because government mistakes are more unforgivable than business mistakes (where failure and experiments are often encouraged). I would expect more layers of approval/red-tape to develop as no-one wants to accept the blame of approving.
> Have you seen the DoD and other gov entity contracting?
DoD contracting seems like worst of both worlds: a combination of bureaucracy, aggressive profiteering, and rare real-world evaluation of the products.
I'm kinda surprised military production hasn't been nationalized. It seems like it's mainly done by a handful of companies that are almost wholly dependent on government contracts, and the government is loathe to steer too much work away from any of these entities in order to preserve their capability.
How would eliminating the profit margin make it more economically attractive develop these products?
Perhaps more solutions would be developed, but they would have to be subsidized.