"There is also the cry that they only get new drugs from a small percentage of their research, but this to me is a red herring. Who else expects to be paid for failure (except of course bankers)."

They're not being paid for failure, they are recovering the cost of research. For every drug that finally makes it through phase III clinical trials, gains a licence and goes to market literally hundreds of other compounds will have been identified and tested. Someone needs to find out if these have potential and if they do how they can be made to work, if they are safe, effective and how they can be manufactured in industrial quantities for distribution. All of this requires a massive amount of resource and research, and the people that do this work aren't some fly-by-night quacks, they're some of the best educated people on the planet and they don't come cheap.

Add in to this all costs need to be covered during the life of a ten year patent and that's why drug companies charge the earth (some of these drugs are truly astounding in their MOA and cost a considerable amount to produce, even though relatively few people will actually benefit from them). Drug companies tend to work in specific therapeutic areas and many of these drugs are stepping stones on the way to finding new treatments and cures; oncology benefits greatly from the research of major pharma companies.

If this sounds like a spirited defence of the faceless evil corporations keeping us all sick then it's not, but it is reality. Drug discovery and development demands pure scientific research and this is something governments will simply not invest in unless it has commercial value. Pure research is being slashed by governments whose ministers don't have the wit or motivation to understand that without it humankind cannot move forward scientifically in any meaningful way. Outside of universities how much publicly funded pure research is going on into drug development? Squat. The space programme? Run on a shoestring.

Look at the debates on free healthcare in the US and UK. Is anyone going to seriously suggest that the extensive and expensive research (which requires a global infrastructure) is going to be paid for by the taxpayer?

The majority of people vote for a capitalist system (and many people have duckfits if an alternative is suggested) and in this free market system the only way to develop drugs is if they are commercially viable. So assuming you're happy to live the life where freedom of choice means consumer freedom of choice then you've got nothing to whinge about - it's your system, so get with it.

Of course, free market systems like capitalism aren't for handouts and helping the needy and that is why governments and drug companies show their arses with generic manufacturers of drugs in developing nations like India and Brazil. The system demands they protect their economic interests and so if someone is dying in a filthy favela because they can't get cheap antivirals that could save their lives then so be it. That's the system western capitalism promotes, we as consumers pay for in myriad ways and the system we vote for in elections. The system doesn't have a conscience, and if you do then vote it out when you can.

Until you decide to regulate the free market to make it fairer for all regardless of their financial situation, colour, nationality or quirk of birth then look at the work the drug companies do and wonder.