Modern vaccines and new drugs are vastly more expensive. It costs for example over $1 billion to fund a new drug.
Like, definitely there's costs associated with Phase 1/2/3 etc, but right now the actors in the chain have absolutely no incentives to limit these costs, as they help to justify the huge profits gained from the temporary monopoly of patents.
Also, it's worth noting that all the big Pharma companies spend much, much more on marketing than they do on research.
No. Definitely not.
We learnt that during the mad scramble for a Covid vaccine.
Followed up by a sickening cash grab.