Greed — Senate report points to greed and "patent thickets" as key reasons for high prices. When big pharmaceutical companies are confronted over their exorbitant pricing of prescription drugs in the US, they often retreat to two well-worn arguments: One, that the high drug prices cover costs of researching and developing new drugs, a risky and expensive endeavor, and two, that middle managers—pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), to be specific—are actually the ones price gouging Americans. Both...