I'd say few people try to maximize compensation. Rather, most people prioritize on a number of factors including not just compensation, but enjoyment/tolerance

I'd say few people try to maximize compensation. Rather, most people prioritize on a number of factors including not just compensation, but enjoyment/tolerance of the work. And compensation generally becomes less of a priority as it increases, as there's less need for it. In other words, it's not clear that you need to maximize profits to get a respectable amount of human resources into a field. Capitalism is great at many things, but there's definitely cases where common cause makes other solutions more viable within a limited scope. Also, in response to why other countries aren't funding drug development, it could be as simple as the fact that they don't need to, since the US is doing it for them. Similar to the effect of our outsized military spending allowing many allied countries to spend less on their own defense.