You can't use an "in theory" argument for one side but not the other.
In theory governments could bring medicine to market, in practice they don't/can't.
In theory pharma industry could do foundational research, but in practice they don't/can't.
You act like the solution would be “oh well, no meds for anyone then!” and not “let’s expand university programs to meet that need”.
Citation neeeded - have they ever done so? Would the shareholders accept it? Would they be able to manage borderline autistic PHD types detached from reality, and would these scientists want to work there?
What companies don’t have is PhD students. They are numerous, smart, very cheap, and work very hard.
> They are numerous, smart, very cheap, and work very hard.
Yeah, this is a good reason to hire such people, but they generally don't do foundational research work at companies, and if they do it is extremely narrow.
Just like government work the problem is the environment, Governments hires management and planning types just like companies do, but that doesn't mean they can scale up like a company can. Same with foundational research, private companies aren't a good place to do that.
I'm not quite sure why pharma is the exception.
In other fields, either there's some tangible hope of profit down the road, or at least you can attract talent and prestige. Not so much here.
The pharma industry COULD do their own foundational research, but the university system cannot bring a drug to market.