One way to steelmanning Alexander's argument is to assume that what he is calling extremely plausible is only the general claim "pharma companies want you to us

One way to steelmanning Alexander's argument is to assume that what he is calling extremely plausible is only the general claim "pharma companies want you to use more expensive patented drugs instead [of alternatives]", and not the whole passage. This leaves plenty of room to argue that this does not make the specific claim plausible. I am not so sure the author's response here can be steelmanned. He says "Alexander was 'steelmanning'... but in doing so he was swallowing whole a 'strawman' about pharmaceutical companies and public health officials." It is not clear, from the author's quote, that Alexander accepts the straw man. More generally, steelmanning may sometimes be done via a tacit or explicit "even assuming, for the sake of argument,..."