Be a shame if someone looked up this on Google and found that it's not as outsized as some think
You can find the health R&D expenditure data here: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/health_glance-2017-72-en...
It shows the U.S. spending 2.4x that of Europe on pharma expenditure as a % of GDP, and 3.2x that of Europe on government R&D health budgets as a % of GDP.
Edit: somewhat newer data is here https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/fc8b43f4-en/index.html?i...
It shows that the R&D pharma spending gap has actually increased even further to 3.5x.
You could pick the next most expensive country's plan, triple US R&D expenditures, and still spend way less. The GP's point about it not being outsized is correct.