SOME DRUG-RELATED ADVICE for German Chancellor Angela Merkel:

German firms once dominated the biopharmaceutical field. Known as the “medicine chest of Europe,” German drug makers spawned U.S. divisions that are now multinationals in their own right. But today, as The Philadelphia Inquirer detailed in a recent series, there is not one German company among the top ten drug-makers.

German medical and biopharmaceutical firms are now lagging far behind their younger cousins in the U.S. when it comes to developing the new “wonder drugs” that are shaping the 21st century: By some estimates, U.S. labs are churning out 70 percent of all new drugs.

A range of shortsighted government policies did much of the damage.

I hope that doesn’t happen here. People tend to take innovation for granted.