It would depend on the project's margins and/or sunk costs. A project that had very little invested in it or is a breakout success might we able to weather a 50% cut in exclusivity period, but a marginal product might not. Most of the already developed drugs are probably going to be fine, assuming that the financing for them was already secured.
>or would they keep trying?
For the projects at the margins? most certainly. That is not to say all private drug development would, stop. If some sort of unpatented-but-super-cheap-to-perfect-but-still-not-patented drug showed up it might still be developed, but in aggregate I'd expect drug development to drop significantly.
I am arguing that there are no marginal projects at current profit levels, and that's why they can spend billions on stock buybacks. There is a point that lessening patent protections would cause companies to cut back, but we are not at that point.
It would depend on the project's margins and/or sunk costs. A project that had very little invested in it or is a breakout success might we able to weather a 50% cut in exclusivity period, but a marginal product might not. Most of the already developed drugs are probably going to be fine, assuming that the financing for them was already secured.
>or would they keep trying?
For the projects at the margins? most certainly. That is not to say all private drug development would, stop. If some sort of unpatented-but-super-cheap-to-perfect-but-still-not-patented drug showed up it might still be developed, but in aggregate I'd expect drug development to drop significantly.