So I was an intern at Merck MANY years ago and they had this interesting comparison.

Most companies only publish medical research findings on blockbuster drugs once both are true:

1. Production has started

2. A patent has been filed

The reason for this is that they want to maximize the amount of production time under patent b/c that maximizes revenue.

If you are the researcher, that means you have to wait until all of the production setup is ready to go.

Merck took a different stance.

There, the patent was filed as soon as the researcher was ready to publish. This meant that there was less time under patent for production but was much better for the researcher as they got their findings out earlier.

The thinking was that being able to publish earlier would attract better researchers and in turn would lead to better drugs, more revenue, more profits.

This was in the late 1990s so not sure how this plan worked out as I haven't been in pharma since that era.

Would be interesting to hear from other folks more knowledgeable.