Most of the R&D done to make drugs isn't done at universities. They do some initial discovery work and invent entire new categories of drugs, but their overall role in the process of taking a druggable target to market is limited.
Academia gets to keep rewards; universities patent discoveries and license the technology to industry. This made $$$ for Stanford and UC (billions of dollars).
I am sympathetic to the idea that regular joe of US doesn't get enough benefit for their tax payments but actually I think if you look at all the benefits americans get indirectly from living here, it's hard to say for certain that individuals aren't recompensed properly. And, I suppose, if they wanted, many people can buy stock in pharma and enjoy the profits themselves.
