I don’t think people are asking for “free”, they’re asking for “at cost”, or some sort of bulk deal. There is actually a lot of precedent for that in SV deals,

I don’t think people are asking for “free”, they’re asking for “at cost”, or some sort of bulk deal. There is actually a lot of precedent for that in SV deals, for one people get some return on investment (the bulk order discount / profit cut deal). Second you get deal modifiers like facebooks sweetheart ad deal for Microsoft’s 240M funding round, which might be akin to “if we fund this thing we need you to work with us if we’re all about to die without it”. Truly good/fair solution probably exists between nationalizing Gilead and Gileads opening bid.