"The next time you pick up a prescription, take a look at the price of the product—not the portion you pay after reimbursements, but the actual price. Pharmaceuticals are expensive. And that translates into good business: the pharmaceutical industry had significantly higher profit margins than other industries in the period from 2000 to 2018 (Ledley et al., 2020). And with the aging population driving demand, global pharma sales reached 1.48 trillion US dollars in 2022 (Mikulic, 2024).

Counter Intuition
An opportunity of that scale attracts entrepreneurs by the score, but none quite like Victoria Hale. She chose to make pharmaceuticals that don't make money. Yes, you read that correctly. Her firm, Institute for OneWorld Health, described itself as a non-profit pharmaceutical company. OneWorld is her solution to the problem facing people in countries such as India who simply cannot afford many modern pharmaceutical treatments—clearly a worthwhile endeavor, one whose foundation is worth understanding."