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The pharmaceutical industry does not require IP to be profitable. (Nor does any other industry.)
The companies who manufacture drugs where patents have expired sure don't. Not so sure about the companies who actually do the research. They spend a lot of money developing drugs, and most of them don't make it to the consumer, so the few that does have to carry all costs. It takes about 30 years from initial research to consumer, and you apply for a patent when you have a candidate drug, which is around year 12-15, and then you start clinical trials, if they go well you can have a drug in the market in 2-3 years, so you have about 10-15 years to make enough money to cover your costs and make a profit.
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I can think of only one way to fund pharmaceutical research without IP: funding from a government that collects taxes to cover the cost of research. It's either this kind of government, or we have intellectual property.