Where are you getting 10X? If I look at, say, Merck, their "sales, general, and administrative expenses" [1] trends at even or slightly higher than their R&D expenses [2]. Abbvie's ratio is around 2x [3, 4].

AFAIK, SG&A is the number that groups criticizing pharmaceutical companies look at, even though it includes a lot of money spent on things like paying lawyers, which any pharmaceutical company that actually wants to make back the billions spent on developing drugs will have to do.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/269499/merck-and-co-sgan...

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/282738/expenditure-on-re...

[3] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ABBV/abbvie/sellin...

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/417068/r-and-d-expenditu...