Such a tough conversation. I want to think that these firms should do this research out of the goodness of their hearts, but i know that their employees want to go on vacation and send their kids to college. I believe in the invisible hand, and honestly don’t know the solution to these healthcare problems. Maybe just raising taxes and paying for all research by the government, but then I worry about the inefficiencies therein.
Personally I'd love to see someone explore the idea of incentives that heavily favor benefit corporations and/or employee-owned coops for commercial activity in direct support of human rights (assuming we're approaching the problem from a place where people agree access to healthcare, medicines, etc is a human right).
People who do the incredibly valuable work of developing drugs shouldn't be forced to live a life of squalor, and can be compensated generously for the value and complexity of their work, but I think most people's objections to pharma companies as they typically exist today are centered around companies reporting substantial profits and conflated ideas about obligations to shareholders.
Its a lot easier to feel good about a company reporting a profit if you're confident the company's governance structure ensures that profit is mostly lockboxed for future R&D instead of a shareholder dividend to people who may not even know their investment is funding medicine.
