It's very easy to look at this from an isolated economic point of view, but you ignore very important facts.

... go to India where educated and hard-working people people are dime a dozen and set up R&D centres

Large-scale employment for medical research in India is highly problematic due to their medical education system being plagued with fraud. There are also numerous legal advantages to undertaking large amounts of research in countries considered medical powerhouses (the US, France, the UK) including the fact that it is easier to gain IP of medical compounds in these countries (as well as safety approval). I know the world would just love these companies to be selfless but whether or not the cycle begins with high overhead or high prices, lowering prices does decrease profits, in-turn decreasing R&D and a significant part of maintaining profits is patent laws.

Patent laws are also a great thing. Otherwise you'd see every company swarming to the most profitable drugs - not necessarily the most "important" drugs - to create their own slightly different compounds and undercutting the other with slightly lower prices, essentially creating a competitive market for pharmaceuticals, but increasing the amount of redundant products and further decreasing innovation and broadness of treatments. Consider that pharma companies can only hold exclusive patents on their compounds for 20 years. Often almost half that time is spent during trial phases and pushing for FDA approval prior to the drug becoming public and profitable. Allowing copycat companies to release their almost identical compounds sooner than that decreases all incentive for these research powerhouses (almost always top pharma companies) from spending billions on R&D knowing somebody will simply release their compound immediately at a more competitive price. IP allows them to retain exclusivity to pay off the research already done on released drugs and further development for the next prior to them losing the current patent.

I know everybody loves hating on top pharmaceutical companies but without them and laws protecting their developments, kiss Keytruda, Olysio, Kadcyla and other innovative, life-extending drugs goodbye.

Probably not gonna get a reply 7 hours after your comment. Even if I did, I'm going to be downvoted into hell for not blindly opposing corporate America, but there's just too much ignorance in this thread to ignore.