Please don't give insincere apologies, they're rhetorically weak and pairing insincerity with something that should be sincere isn't a good look.

Which segues nicely to this pairing of public funding and private enterprise. No, if the drug wouldn't be sold for a profit then the incentive to make it wouldn't exist and the funds would not be applied for and the ironic pairing - if it is ironic, which I don't think it is - wouldn't exist either.

Unless we're going to believe that researchers go through the mill of applying for funding and doing research simply to get the funding and stay in badly paid employment?