There is some level of R&D they do to productize it, manufacturability and scaling. And running drug safety trials cannot be cheap, especially the liability insurance.

That all said, I think it's criminal that the university labs pay so little. PhD students barely make over $40k, set by the NIH. Not adjusted for CoL either.

I think I have more of an issue with the for-profit nature of pharma companies. Shareholders shouldn't be involved in medicine.