Ahh... but they didn't. They made the mistake of marketing a natural product and tried to make a fortune. This is why drug companies go and find natural medicines, take it back to the lab and synthesize the natural medicine into a patented medicine. Which is fine if they want to do that, but they should also show what the Natural Medicine is.
The new Holistic Medicine process is coming on strong (fish oil, etc...) because it is Natural Medicine without the synthesis of it. It is cheaper to boot. The FDA are removing Fish Oil from Nutrient stores for claiming it is the same chemicals of an Official Medicine. The FDA is protecting who? The public or the company? They should be removing the snake oils, not protecting profits.
It's important that we keep our examples general and not dependent on actions by the FDA, because in the Free State the FDA wouldn't exist, and the entire example you gave would be non-existent with proper laws. Remember, most of the cost of medicine today is NOT research or production cost, but FDA approval. Life Extension Foundation has calculated that if the FDA was dissolved the cost of drugs would on average fall by 90-95%. That's how much of the cost is only due to government regulation.
However, that is beside the point in this discussion. The question is whether it should be possible for someone to protect their research WORK without allowing people to parasite on that work. You have to pretty void of any fragment of humanity if you with a straight face claim that someone who has done research for 10 years and sees his profit taken away by others because they DIDN'T do the research is not being done gross injustice. To me that's just so unspeakably evil on such a massive scale that I lack words. Such a person does not deserve to be called human.