Big Pharma Is Not the Tobacco Industry

Big Pharma offers an easy punching bag. To some extent, the hostility is understandable. Pharmaceutical companies make their money by selling lifesaving innovations that they alone control. When prices are too high, people are forced into poverty to pay for medicine, or they get sick and die for lack of access. Pharma companies too often use dirty tactics to extend patent exclusivity and prevent competition; they also lobby aggressively to defend their financial interests, even at the expense of the public interest.