Consider that pharmaceutical drugs companies such as Pfizer are typically granted patents over their products such that they become monopoly suppliers.

a) Why are monopolies typically considered inefficient? Why does the monopoly behave like this? Use a figure to help with your explanation. [6]

b) If monopolies are typically considered inefficient, why would the government grant firms such as Pfizer such patents? Particularly, does this overcome the inefficiency problem highlighted in (a)?