Well it would have been nice since they took the time to create a user if they would have given a better explanation of their business model but since they didn't...
My husband is a PhD research chemist with a large pharma and he explained it this way. Many companies create compounds for others to use in research to save them time by reducing steps in their procedure. This is done in house and out of house depending on what is cost effective. For example my husband can give parts of his molecule to other chemists or send it overseas to outsourcing. This company offers compounds such as PTC 124, V770, etc. to those wanting to use it in research. Companies may be experimenting with other companies compounds to create generics for when they can market them, create similar products or to test this product for different ailments. This is not an illegal process because S_E_L_E_C_T_C_H_E_M (spelled like this so they don't get hits on google) or any company for that matter can sell any compound "for research purposes" that is PATENTED.
Now you should understand this biz model and also why it is such a race to get drugs to market because once a drug is patented they go to generic in ten years. Even if 5 of those years are spent with FDA approval which in and of itself is a very expensive product! This website exhibits how other companies are benefitting from these patented compounds before Vertex, etc. have even made a dime. Drug development wouldn't happen if the money weren't so good for brand name drugs. It is imparitive for drugs to cover a lot of costs because lets face it there are a lot of costs in drug development.
My husband was in "college" (undergrad, grad school, post doc) for 13 years and 99%+ of his efforts in the lab are exploratory or you could look at them as failures. When he finally hits gold the company needs to compensate for all the time it took to get there. As for compensation, well, he would have made more if he had gone business or management but that wasn't his calling
