Kent,

I'm somewhat skeptical that r&d workers within a drug company have much to say about patents on the drugs they help develop.  I would imagine that any success they have is owned entirely by their employer.

I'm sure that for every successful drug developing company there are many more which are struggling to stay alive.  I'm not sure what it costs to get a drug like cancer fighting drug to market.  Do you know?  Probably quite a bit don't you think? 

Take away incentives for drug companies to profit from their efforts and you'll see next to nothing when it comes to r & d.  I'm pretty certain I don't want that.  Should a company which has invest hundreds of millions of dollars in developing a drug not be entitled to have some protection that they will see some profits from the drug?  7 years sounds pretty reasonable to me to recover their costs.  Let's not forget...this same company most likely has several other drugs they're spending millions to develop will never make it to market for various reasons.

Kevin g