We are not being paid to develop drugs. We are being paid to develop new knowledge that hopefully can be useful

You know that the R in R&D stands for “research”, right? 🤦

The R&D you are paying for is for us to typically find out that “Protein X interacts with Protein Y and causes Effect Z. When we delete Protein X then Effect Z goes away”. We might also find out that “Molecule Q can block the activity of Protein X, but has a host of issues that make it ineffective when given to Petri dish cells and mice.”

Sounds a hell of a lot like that’s the kind of research that’s indispensable when formulating drugs.

This can give you a lead towards making a drug

Ya think? 🤦

but what we do is basically discover a possible starting point, nothing more

Sounds like you’re doing all of the research and other legwork tbh. That’s hardly just “a starting point”.

I’m really curious where this concept that the government is spending tons of money on drug R&D at publicly funded universities is coming from

You mean other than how you just confirmed it while trying to disprove it?

from my perspective within the system it’s not quite how things work.

That being the perspective of living proof that you can be intelligent and simultaneously oblivious of the obvious.

Either way, pharmaceutical companies aren’t spending all their income on R&D. By far the biggest expense is advertising and after that, it’s stockholder dividends of the absolutely obscene profits they’re making on ripping off sick people.