I am quite sure ALL of the above is being done at this time, along with government getting the he’ll out of the way of pharmaceutical companies!! The damn time it takes in the US to get something on the market is just ridiculous!!! Pharmaceutical companies are not going to put citizens at risk
by being careless their businesses are on the line from major law suits!! Government needs to get the HELL out of the way and let these scientists do what they do best!! Trump had the CEO’s of ALL the pharmaceutical companies at the WH already and I am sure they are on top of this NOW!!!
There’s another aspect to consider. Drug discovery takes a long time, it’s largely trial and error to find drugs that appear to work and for every one that does there are tens of thousands that go through the same testing process only to find they are ineffective. Then as you say they go into a lengthy series of testing and clinical trials. Nobody wants untested drugs on the market causing unknown side-effects so cutting corners doesn’t make sense. Besides, most pharma companies would follow similar development schedules even without regulations because just as you say, they don’t want to put their companies at risk of lawsuits. It’s a high risk business, just look a thalidomide, etc. and businesses are by nature risk-averse.
All this time the clock is ticking...patents are only good for 20 years and if it takes 10 to get into testing and 3-5 years for clinical trials and approval, that leaves 5 years for the pharma company to make all the money back it’s invested in R&D before the patent expires and it becomes generic.
That’s where change could be made - extend drug patents to say 30 years, then ride herd on pharma to reduce prices on it’s own rather than being driven by patent expiration.