Comment by gjm11
14 hours ago
I'm inclined to agree with your point, but it seems like there's an obvious thing they could do that I think people wouldn't complain about: Reduce their prices. Of course that would just look like not getting so many billions from GLP-1 drugs, rather than like any specific action one could complain about.
(If anyone reading this feels inclined to say something like "But how would that benefit them?" -- well, if you restrict consideration to things they could do that benefit them, then it no longer seems so unreasonable if all their options look bad to the critically-minded. Maybe they should be doing things that benefit the rest of the world more and themselves less.)
Outside of the occasional spike from a real blockbuster, pharmaceutical companies are not particularly profitable. Without those temporary (patent-protected) “windfall” profits, the business model doesn’t work.
To whatever extent they couldn't afford to reduce prices while staying in business, they also couldn't afford to spend those alleged billions of dollars on basic R&D or stock buybacks.
Investing in potential future blockbusters and encouraging investors to value the equity by returning some fraction of profits is the business model.