No. R&D spend has risk because you only succeed a certain % of the time. Valeant succeeded by jacking up prices. They were able to do so by partially paying cop

No. R&D spend has risk because you only succeed a certain % of the time. Valeant succeeded by jacking up prices. They were able to do so by partially paying copays. Here then you have a version of the principal agent problem. Customer gets more meds than needed and gets brand name valeant meds at no cost to themselves; valeant gets its money by gaming the payment system from PBMs. Thats why esrx and CVS cut ties with philidor(guilty sub of valeant).