Yes I know I know, the title seems a bit ambitious and idealistic, but there is definitely a way to lessen the amount of loopholes available to pharmaceutical companies. The patent guidelines are vague and subjective, leaving it up to the reader to judge what is novelty/a new idea. For example, here is a quote from Second Generation Patents in Pharmaceutical Innovation, "In order to obtain a patent, patent law requires a claimed invention to be new, to involve an inventive step (non-obviousness), to be susceptible to industrial application (utility), and to be sufficiently supported by a description (sufficiency of disclosure)", I don't know about you but that seems pretty vague to me, with this type of loose wording it is truly up to the decider, not an objective standpoint. 

Evergreening is a tactic commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry to prevent competition for a certain product/medicine. When a patent is close to expiring, a company will slightly change the product, whether its changing the dosage, a single chemical in it, or changing the administration of the drug. They barely meet the threshold of the patent requirements, but it gives a brand new lifetime to have that drug with no competition. 

The use of the evergreening tactic is all at the expense of the consumer. If you have zero competition, it's really easy to raise the prices to crazy amounts simply because they can. The best solution to this problem is to ask the US department of patents to change their patent law to be more specific to create a more objective standpoint for patents to be created under.