Totally agree with your second point. Add to that the fact that pharmaceutical companies market drugs directly to doctors which can yield prescriptions of useless drugs.

However, I disagree that they use normal marketing strategies with governments. They play politics instead. In this case they had the backing of the World Health Organization, and media outlets screaming words like pandemics every ten seconds. We all know that dead bodies don't look good on a politicians resume willing to run for reelection.