Several counterpoints:

(1) “profit” is just another way of saying “effort”. Would you try and work hard and risk your own money if you knew you weren’t getting paid for it? If you say “yes”, do you actually do that?

(2) they’re probably used to it in this industry, but these pharma companies are really getting more hate than praise these days. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” Except that they’re not actually damned if they don’t, they wouldn’t be in the news at all!

(3) same argument as above, except r/pharma/West. People here developed an amazing technological post-industrial civilisation over centuries, and now we can use this technology to rapidly produce vaccines... yet we’re getting all the hate for not producing, manufacturing, distributing it fast enough.

A bit unfair, don’t you think?

Profit is exploitation of needs or wants, which isn't necessarily evil. Evil is having the power to stop suffering easily without harming yourself but choosing to seek profits instead (e.g. insulin prices).

Just as we have regulations (e.g. patents) to protect business's profitability, we should have equal regulations to protect the public need.