I think you need to separate the concepts of companies from their employees.

Any capitalist will tell you that the purpose of a company, any company, is to make money for it's shareholdes/owners/interested parties. That applies to drug companies just as much as any other type of company. Their purpose is not to cure cancer and if they suceed in doing so that's an incidental benefit. A means to an end but not the end in itself.

The employees of the company are very different. Research scientists in particular are a motivated bunch. They're working in a career that, while hardly minimum wage, is not as well paid as they could achieve if they went into a different career (these are intelligent people after all). They're generally motivated by a sense of self worth derived from the work they carry out rather than the pay check they will collect at the end of the month.

It's much the same for us developers. I like writing programs. My company likes making money. The fact that those two motivations compliment each other is the only reason they employ me and the only reason I work for them.