In America we have some pretty bed economics around health, i could easily see this number inflated by the exorbitant cost of insulin, or HIV meds, or cancer meds. life saving medications whose costs are quite controversial.
also, end of life care for the elderly. this is a statistic that needs some serious context and fact checking IMO
The medical industry seems to operate a lot like gambling where outsize profits are available from a small percentage of "whales". These whales have the combination of some condition, the treatment of which can be made very expensive, combined with access to the financial resources to pay for the treatment.
This entirely ignores the cost of R&D, clinical trials, and most importantly, all the other drugs that didn't make it to market.
My bet is the latter
The healthcare sector's 5 year profit margins is 10.0%. That puts it in the middle of the pack when it comes to the other sectors.
https://insight.factset.com/hs-fs/hubfs/1)Insight/2024/04.20...
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/16472/do-typica...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-p...
On the flip side, once they start making a profit, they have to pay a similarly high fraction in taxes.
This is to incentivize searching while also letting the profits benefit the majority.
Had a shower thought if such a model might have worked on the pharmaceutical market as well.
[1]: https://www.nrk.no/klima/xl/leterefusjonen_-disse-selskapene...