Letting India manufacture these domestically (and, heck, the entire rest of the developed world) wouldn't affect drug research and investment strategies one little bit. The big fear from drug companies is reimportation, where drugs manufactured in India are imported back into the USA for sale, without the major patent premium being paid. This is fairly trivially avoidable.
So, yeah, in the end, it's about squeezing that last dime in profits out of people, and not fundamentally giving a damned about anything else.
Modafinal is a drug available from India on the cheap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
commercially it was being sold as Provigil.
The article I didn't read hits upon this drug, I've purchased it a few times from India as Provigil (with a prescription), it's come I'm sure as modafinil.
Provigil's patent was to expire in 2012 thus begot Nuvigil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... which is slower acting, Provigil's patent was renewed for a very long time, I haven't got an answer to when, but told it's no time soon.
Nuvigil runs around $20 a tablet, Provigil $25 a box of 50 (India), Provigil isn't being sold anymore (in the US) that I know of just kept for it's patent.
Modafinal is your basic generic drug, everything after is research.
In the case of Newvigil, it being such an exceptional drug they are asking for more than it's worth, where as Modafinal being virtually the same thing, is asking it's manufacture price and a bit of profit.