You apparently have little idea how indirect rates work in academia.
Some basic math: A $500K grant with a 60% indirect will have 0.6*$500K = $300K worth of indirect costs on the 300K+500k= $800K grant. The indirect cost are thus $300K/800K or 37.5% of the total.
This compares well to cutthroat biotechs which have SG&A rates of 40 to 60%.
Further, the indirect rates in academia largely support services like histology labs, imaging cores, compute resources, safety training, and chemical disposal. It would be far more expensive if each lab had to contract out these services directly.
Some basic math: A $500K grant with a 60% indirect will have 0.6*$500K = $300K worth of indirect costs on the 300K+500k= $800K grant. The indirect cost are thus $300K/800K or 37.5% of the total.
This compares well to cutthroat biotechs which have SG&A rates of 40 to 60%.
Further, the indirect rates in academia largely support services like histology labs, imaging cores, compute resources, safety training, and chemical disposal. It would be far more expensive if each lab had to contract out these services directly.