their thought leaders

Not only Big Pharma either. I'm not one to always go "Thanks Obama", but Obama was really instrumental in promoting the idea throughout the bureaucracy of a partnership between Corporations and Government. Where the government is supposed to enforce the law evenly to ensure a fair playing field, what they pivoted to was a carrot-and-stick approach where agencies have personal relationships with members of boards, the government makes "requests" through them, and the corpos get special treatment to break whatever laws they want as long as they comply with those requests. This includes hiring people from former intelligence agencies or the FBI to C levels. In other words blatant corruption and the embiggening of the Deep State in the name of "promoting the general welfare."

(And I only blame Obama for making it official but it's been going on at some level for decades. I think he was kind of a Manchurian Candidate to program people to accept shady things they were doing behind the scenes as good.)