That doesn't make sense to me. Why would a company sell anything at a loss without some kind of complementary benefit? That's something that would lose all thei

That doesn't make sense to me. Why would a company sell anything at a loss without some kind of complementary benefit? That's something that would lose all their investors money and have the company go bankrupt. The companies have some leverage. They can hire PR firms to basically say, "Our new drug X treats disease Y. Your country Z doesn't want to pay to help those suffering from Y". If people afflicted by Y can garner enough influence to pressure their government's health department to get X, then they might get that. If you want proof whether or not big pharmaceutical companies lose money by selling to countries outside the US, then try to find out if they would support a bill that forbids US pharmaceutical companies from selling at a price below what they charge Medicare. The comparison to a burger chain is interesting: I remember reading that McDonald's makes money from real estate as opposed to burgers here on HN a while back [0][1]. [0] http://blog.wallstreetsurvivor.com/2015/10/08/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burger/ http://blog.wallstreetsurvivor.com/2015/10/08/mcdonalds-beyo... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14158772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14158772