> I no longer care much about the "they're a business, they're allowed to make a profit" line
You have to consider both the seen and the unseen: consider the case where a drug is not developed in the first place because the return on investment is (expected to be) forcefully lowered below where it is profitable. Or even more abstract: research is slowed down due to more risk adverse behaviour, delaying a major breakthrough.
Investing in drug development is very expensive and very risky. Very risky investments command a large return on their success.
It's easy to focus on the large sums of money being made on specific drugs, but pharma as an industry isn't inherently more profitable that other industries as a result. The cost of lower prices on successful drugs is going to come from somewhere.
You have to consider both the seen and the unseen: consider the case where a drug is not developed in the first place because the return on investment is (expected to be) forcefully lowered below where it is profitable. Or even more abstract: research is slowed down due to more risk adverse behaviour, delaying a major breakthrough.
Investing in drug development is very expensive and very risky. Very risky investments command a large return on their success.
It's easy to focus on the large sums of money being made on specific drugs, but pharma as an industry isn't inherently more profitable that other industries as a result. The cost of lower prices on successful drugs is going to come from somewhere.