Yeah? Try going to Europe, buying a couple of KG of, say, Zoloft tabs, and importing them back to the US for retail sale. Won't happen.
I'm with you on the cost of FDA regulation, however. I live in that world, and it's amazing how much money gets spent to meet compliance requirements even by companies that make generics.
Yeah? Try going to Europe"
The situation with foreign country sales can be quite different. In order to remain viable, US drug companies must be prudent with US sale price in order to recover the $2.5 billion cost of approvals to sell in the US. Keep in mind, the production cost of most drugs is near zero in comparison. When they can also sell the drugs in other countries with controlled prices, it is also prudent to sell them there at the controlled price. It's counterproductive to allow reimporting these at the controlled price, when the R&D costs have not been recovered.
I say again, the problem is the cost of FDA approvals, not drug company greed. If you are going to convince me of drug company greed, you're going to have to show me a drug company with excessive profits.