What would happen if the government chooses to increase the number of years that a firm can enjoy patent protection from 20 years to 25 years?

If the government chose to increase the number of years that a firm could enjoy patent protection from 20-25 years, what "should" happen is a reduction in price of the overly expensive pharmaceutical drugs. What generally happens with patents is companies file them long before the drug actually comes out. That is due to needing the protection during research and development to make sure there investment is protected. Unfortunately this period of initial discovery, research all the way through clinical trials to approval can be extremely long. So by the time the drug is actually on the market, the effective patent period after the drug has finally received approval is often around seven to twelve years (Mandal, 2014). After that time other companies are able to produce a generic version of the drug at a much cheaper price. So the original company's "excuse" for charging such a high price for the drug is the fact they only have so much time to recoup the developmental cost. So if the time was extended from 20 years to 25 years, the drug companies would have more time to recover their costs, thereby not needing to charge so much initially, resulting in lower costs to the consumer. The question is will they? Unlike every other advanced country, the United States permits drug companies to charge patients whatever they choose (Angell, 2015). So these companies could continue to price gouge. These companies are consistently the most profitable and often point to the free market system, insisting they have the right to charge whatever they want and that they are looking out for their investors. Without the public demanding government support or price caps, under the current system these pharmaceuticals are free to exploit the market as much as they want.