You're missing the part of the picture where private interests have lobbied to strangle public efforts consistently to make sure they look good by comparison.

You're missing the part of the picture where private interests have lobbied to strangle public efforts consistently to make sure they look good by comparison. You're also missing the part where most research is done via public grants and only the translational part is done by private industry. I looked up the profits compared to R&D at a big phrama company, and the dividends paid to shareholders were about on par. Their bellyaching is vastly overstated. I'm a software engineer, and I took a 50%+ paycut to make the world a better place. One more anecdata vs. yours.