And yet we have a contributor https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6870282 saying "That said, Genentech is on the wrong side of the PR angle here and unfortunately for them, some internal documents got exposed which make them seem less than angelic here. If the cost differential of producing the drugs really is small, then they don't have a strong position, because it makes them appear as if they are using one of the drugs as a profit center to fund future R&D.", which he clarifies as "they are using one of the drugs moreso than another as a profit center."
In this case an appeal to abstract fairness in pricing based on production costs. Which the author recognizes is probably not practical in the real world.
But that such a thing, "using one of the drugs as a profit center to fund future R&D", can even be thought of as a bad thing ("wrong side of the PR angle") ... well, the very much not nice part of me hopes for all these people who implicitly desire or demand the end of new drug development that karma is for real.
In this case an appeal to abstract fairness in pricing based on production costs. Which the author recognizes is probably not practical in the real world.
But that such a thing, "using one of the drugs as a profit center to fund future R&D", can even be thought of as a bad thing ("wrong side of the PR angle") ... well, the very much not nice part of me hopes for all these people who implicitly desire or demand the end of new drug development that karma is for real.