Former White House policy adviser Ezekiel Emanuel, who is now the vice provost and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, famously wrote last year that he plans to stop all health care efforts to prolong his life once he reaches 75, contending the "manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive."

It's been about a decade since Congress created the Biomedical Advance Research and Development Authority (BARADA), an agency aimed at accelerating the development of medical countermeasures against biological threats.

AstraZeneca has entered into a public-private partnership with the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to develop new antibacterials intended to address biothreat pathogens, in addition to antibiotic resistance, under a "portfolio" approach, which will allow the U.S. government funds to be steered away from a product that proves to be unsuccessful early on in the R&D process to other promising candidates.

While biopharmaceutical firms initially were slow to pursue inter partes reviews (IPRs) – trial proceedings intended to be a faster and more affordable way for third parties to challenge patents than going through the American court system – there's been a significant uptick in the past year in the number of petitions filed involving drug makers' patents, which has more than doubled from 4% the previous two years to 9%, said Washington lawyer Eleanor Yost, a partner in Goodwin Procter's intellectual property litigation group.