It's the fact that pharmaceutical companies are involved in the sphere of public health that makes people uneasy about excessive profits, whatever "excessive" means.

It's not only profits: lifestyle drugs, like statins and medication for ED are obviously a source of easy profit, meanwhile research into antibiotics is falling by the wayside.

The fact that the existing antibiotics are becoming useless and there is nothing to replace them is going to be a disaster. There is this current discussion about vaccination skepticism (to use a polite word); one reason that parents omit to vaccinate their children is that no one living has experienced what a genuine measles or polio epidemic is like.

The availability of antibacterials since the 1930s has been a similar miracle. You do not have to die of a severe infection, you can take medication against it. Unless there is investment in research, serious infectious diseases will be back.

Statins are a lifestyle drug? Come on.

First-line treatment for high cholesterol is still dietary changes and exercise.

Those margins are reasonable, but they include advertising, and I don't think drug companies should advertise.

Remove advertising and reduce prices accordingly.

> It's not at all clear to me that drug companies are somehow seeking more profits than other companies.

Could it be high-level tax evasion ?

If it is, then why isn't everyone doing it? Are you saying that somehow AstraZeneca has wizardly accountants that Apple does not?