Comment by 542354234235

>That completely misses the point. The problem is that companies won't do the research to find cures -- because cures don't make money.

This is only true if a company is confident that all other companies are also not working on a cure. That may be feasible when dealing with a local service or commodity (as you only have to come to a wink wink agreement with other companies in the local area) or when only a few companies control a large amount of a limited resource (like OPEC). That does not work well when dealing with an idea or technology.

Any company anywhere in the world could decide to research a cure. A Nation State-run research group could do it and just give the patent away. It is virtually impossible to get all of them to not research it, and if any of them anywhere find a cure, your treatment profits fall off a cliff. So it makes fiscal sense to sell the treatment, use your market position to get the best data on the condition, and research a cure so you can be first to market and control the distribution of the cure and ensure that the profits go back to you.