text: What's not mentioned in the article is that the basic research from which drugs are developed is virtually all funded with taxpayer money at no cost to the industry. 
  
  If the research looks promising the drug companies fund trials, often with the support of overly generous tax credits, to test their efficacy and safety so they can be patented and sold.
  
  Drug trials are not sequestered but paid for by the companies hoping to profit and who also choose the entities who will carry them out thus creating a strong potential for bias.