When things go the other way, society doesn't let them make a fair loss.

There are currently 54 vaccines being tested on humans. Getting the necessary data to obtain approval for human testing requires a lot of funding. Testing on humans requires a lot of funding. In the end, maybe 4 vaccines will be used. Do you think the companies that produced and tested the ~50 vaccines that will not be used will get their investment back?

yes, all of these vaccine research are funded by the taxpayer.

[citation needed]

what's you definition of fair? What the market would bear?

Except for how, you know, weapons and medicines have slightly different effects when used.

With weapons, it costs money to kill someone; with medicine, it costs money to save them.

This isn't responding to the OP's point, which was that war profiteering (making money by providing weapons to kill people) is morally different from selling vaccines (making money by providing medicines to save people's lives).

I'm not sure I follow? Profiteering off of healthcare has a cost, in terms of people not cared for due to various market reasons.

I'm very familiar with the perverse outcomes that emanate from profit-driven medical research, having been personally affected by illnesses that the mainstream medical science community sees no incentive to invest in.

But the reasons and ethics of the system being the way it is are separate from the reality of what it is for the purposes of getting things done in the here and now.

For better or worse, as things stand right now, pharmaceutical companies, like other companies, need to make profits - or at the very least avoid crippling losses - in order to survive and continue doing their work.

That includes covering the formidable costs of the many research studies that go nowhere and yield no revenues.

I'm sure you wouldn't find a single person in a pharmaceutical company who would feel good about withholding treatment from any person with a life threatening illness. But what they also have to care about is remaining in business so they can treat and cure many more people with serious illnesses.

Pharmaceutical corporations are not exactly well known to seek "fair" profits.

Practically speaking, I suppose a hypothetical scenario could be that the:

- the companies are granted patents

- the vaccine lasts for a limited amount of time

- before each patent expiry they companies make minor modifications (say, storage temperature requirement decreased by half a degree)

- the company make "unfair" profits by extending the oligopoly for a very long amount of time

I'm not stating that this will happen, but on the other hand, I find this plausible.

It looks like a huge opportunity! Start your own pharmaceutical company and disrupt these bastards! You found the problem, now bring the solution.

Unfortunately, this area has a very high start up cost, which limits disruption. This is the big problem when people say "just disrupt".

In addition, the aforementioned patents prevent disruption. Even long after the original patent expires.