Not to digress too much- I doubt that even with tort reform drug companies would be more willing to gamble with drugs. And maybe that is a good thing.
Not to defend drug companies, since they make huge profits, once they have a "hit drug" on the market, like let's say Lipitor, they only have the rights to that drug for 7 years. After that, it becomes generic and their profits drop alot.
It's sort of a miracle that ANY drug company would want to spend the years of time and money to try and develop a new drug when most fail.
However, again, I doubt that is why the good chemistry jobs for these drug companies have dried up. I would guess for many reasons that these companies do their drug research overseas where it's cheaper and there is less regulation. And that I think is a bad thing for the USA.
