Health Secretary @MattHancock on supplies of medicines in the event of a no deal Brexit: "We have proposed that there is stockpiling by the pharmaceutical companies, not by the NHS. If everybody does what they need to do then we can have a unhindered flow of medicine" #r4today
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) September 6, 2018
Some people are just greedheads and don't believe anything they say, but for actual true believers, the "magic of the market" and of private companies is that they face incentives which cause them to behave in certain ways and under certain conditions if everyone does that the outcomes are good. But you quickly get from that to "private companies good!" even when they face absolutely no incentives to do whatever it is you think they should do.
The incentives for pharma companies in this situation are quite obvious: run shortages and then demand billions from the government to miraculously fix the problem, after lots of people have died of course. "Please stockpile medicines" is not actually going to work.