Most of the criticism against drug companies is that while they invest x for R&amp;D and actual manufacturing, they earn back at least 100*x in profits. I don&#x27;t think there are many other industries that allow this to happen.<p>I&#x27;m not entirely familiar with what makes pharma patents that much different from software (you don&#x27;t really have a monopoly even if you own a software patent), but that&#x27;s basically what&#x27;s happening.<p>Once a company gets a patent, free market rules no longer apply, and they are free to price their drugs as they want.