Pretty close. Without getting into what is “cheaper and easier”, the work you need to do to publish is a bit different from the amount of work you need to do to: identify targets, set up screening assays, screen hundreds of thousands of compounds, find/optimize a hit, set up secondary assays, optimize the lead compound, do all kinds of physchem/tox/safety studies, select an indication, test in animal models if good ones exist, try and find a suitable dose range, and put all that into a package to support a phase 1 trial. This is part what I’ve seen on the biology side of things, and it only scratches the surface of what the chemistry (small-batch synthesis and the scale-up), pharmacology, and associated people contribute.

Lots of people can synthesize and test a compound in vitro. Doing the above is another challenge because it needs to work reliably in humans.

And yes, from my understanding, universities are getting better at patenting and licensing their IP. Some even do some basic drug discovery IIRC.