If you extend the patent time for an original drug, that means you are reducing the time that you can have a copycat drug, a generic drug, on the market, and there may be some regulatory issues with generic drugs to put more pressures on the generic maker to reduce their prices, but prices by both the original manufacturers and the generics are extremely high. They are much higher than they need to be. The drug companies try to tell us that much of that money goes into research and so on, which is nonsense. Most of the research is done with grants either from the NIH in the U.S. or by medical societies here. Most of the money goes into advertising and distribution; in other words, get more people to take the drugs whether they need them or not.
As I get older and I become more dependent on them, I appreciate their efforts, and, yes, they do have a wonderful impact, but the price for them is outrageous, and therefore I see no reason why a government should extend this monopoly power even further to keep those prices that high.