two primary reasons

While bureaucrats get a thrill regulating, Big Pharma encourages it. Think about it this way.

Three of the most generous also happen to have the most pipeline drugs in phase III this year: Novartis (NVS), Roche (RHHBY.OB), and Sanofi-Aventis (SNY).

Let's start with Novartis. Novartis' last dividend was a very generous $2.48 per share annually. That's 4.6% per share since last dividend, and totals over $6B in dividends, which was an impressive 62% of its 2012 income. It spent close to $7B (page 50) in research and development costs in 2012, with around 20 drugs (pages 32-35) currently in phase III trials. No small cap would be able to afford such largesse, but that number is only 12% of its annual revenue. With government keeping out competition and subsidizing consumption, Novartis is sailing the corporatist sweet spot. At least it is nominally returning the favor to its shareholders with a dividend large enough to offset the risk of holding a stock that is near its all-time highs.Roche comes up right behind Novartis with 19 drugs in the pipeline at the all-expensive Phase III. It spent a similar amount of money on R&D as Novartis did at a hefty $8B, which was about 17% of its 2011 revenue. RHHBY is at a similar juncture as NVS. Nearing all-time highs and sailing in the same protected sweet spot. At a $1.84 dividend it is also quite generous with its shareholders, totaling 4.27% per share annually, a total amount of $6.355B forked over to shareholders, which totals just under 60% of its 2012 income, just shy of Novartis'.