The ANL maintains a large research facility called the Advanced Photon Source, a giant X-ray machine that the government rents out to academics (for free) and p

The ANL maintains a large research facility called the Advanced Photon Source, a giant X-ray machine that the government rents out to academics (for free) and pharma companies (for $$$). The APS is very important and has been involved in many major pharma discoveries as well as a few Nobel prizes, and they pay very smart people to run their facilities, but the relationship is much more contractual than your comment implies. I don't know what beamtime at APS costs but if it's anything like other such facilities, Pfizer paid thousands of dollars an hour for the privilege of keeping their data collections private from staff and other users. (And to give credit where it's due, pharma execs have testified before Congress about the importance of these facilities.)