“We’re going to stop making new products. We’ve decided that we don’t need more money.”

Does that sound like a pharma company to you?

The Sacklers need to go to prison and their stuff repossessed.

Ignore anything any company says. They lie.

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Big Pharma doesn’t really do as much basic research as they claim. They do a fair bit but I’d guess it’s mostly universities funded by NIH (and other governments’) grants making the most important discoveries. Then philanthropists, investors, more government grants, etc. often fund the early stage clinical trials and the creation of the small company. Big Pharma does obviously invent a lot of medications in house but it seems like the more typical path is that they buy a small company in later stage trials and provide the marketing and manufacturing/distribution at scale.

Which is fine. They aren’t pure evil or good. The discoverer, university, people who took financial risk get paid. But there’s other ways for scientists, universities, and early investors to get their return (which usually funds the next round of research). Government “bounties” is one idea. Like, if you create a miracle cure, rich governments buy the IP rights for x amount and release all claims on the patents so it’s generic from the start. If done correctly, the savings to national healthcare systems (and the 17 systems the U.S. has duct taped together) would cover the bounty and then some. Big Pharma’s manufacturing and distribution would still be important in that system and they could focus on things without bounties.

Honestly, I’d like to see that anyway, especially for diseases that are sort of ignored by capitalism. It’s perfectly ok if the bounty system loses money curing things Big Pharma isn’t so interested in (like less famous third world diseases). It’s not like bombs and roads are profitable for governments.