Pharma companies in the US spend about twice as much on advertising as they do on R&D [1]. Recent data compiled by the House Oversight Committee shows the biggest pharma companies spent $56 billion more on stock buybacks and dividends than they did on R&D over the past five years [2]. Very little of the ridiculous prices that US citizens pay for medicine (directly or via insurance) actually goes towards R&D.
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
[2] https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house....