It is not always easy to have much sympathy for the large pharmaceutical companies, with their glass atriums and multi-billion pound turnovers but there does seem to be a common trend to have a go at them at the moment.
The reality is that these companies are vital for our countries economy and our healthy future. For most if not all pharmacos the belts have been thoroughly tightened and actually the risks have increased. The next blockbuster is no guarantee of future success as many are developing products in the same niche markets, whilst there is massive downward pressure on pricing for obvious reasons.
It is very difficult to take a completely dispassionate view of cost/benefit, but as a society we need to accept that we cannot afford everything that is available. We need to find ways of supporting drug companies to recoup the costs involved in developing new treatments whilst making treatments available to those who will benefit from their use.
This all takes clever thinking, rational debate, the use of new technologies such as genomic sequencing to identify the right treatment for the right patient, what is not helpful is the prevailing view that all drug companies are the bad.