understand: i'm sure they'll be profitable for a long time to come.
> property? Or does the industry get some "life itself" exemption from the
> laws of profit equalization?
if anything, it'll be a 'life itself' intensification: of any major sector, pharmaceuticals are most susceptible to the charge of prof- iteering off of death. unlike the arms industry, they can't shroud themselves in patriotism and 'national security.' let's say glaxo- wellcome (arbitrary example) comes up with a Cure For AIDS. do you really think everyone--including competitors who'd stand a chance of making a buck off of manufacturing something they didn't pour billions into researching--are going to sit idly by while GW moans about how it has to pay its shareholders 20% annual returns? not on your life: the combined power of regulatory agencies, judicial inquiry, international politics, fierce competition, and public opinion will be quite sufficient to wrest that little piece of in- tellectual property away. this dynamic is already strong enough in the vaccine business to scare a lot of the biggies away from a lot of research in that direction: they don't know whether failing or succeeding will cost more. which is why most of that research is being relegated to startups, which rely on VC and, if they succeed, can then be bought out by a major concern. at the same time, though, 'vaccines' are becoming pretty abstract these days, so i expect that certain--i don't even know if there's a word for this--'classes' of drugs will fall prey to this logic as the industry becomes more sophisticated.
personally, i'm reluctant to complain much about public subsidy of companies involved in this business. sure, the business is screwed up and isn't functioning in any way that's 'optimal' according to my belief system. but if there's a business that i'd like to see my subsidies going toward, it's medicine.
cheers, t