Comment by mft_

> Which illnesses have been cured? Diabetes, cancer?

Type I diabetes - no, but this is a condition in which the body attacks the part of itself that makes insulin. So by the time it happens, it's too late. Sadly, we're generally bad at understanding and preventing autoimmune diseases, but this needs more basic research, not drugs.

Type II diabetes - essentially a lifestyle condition. May be functionally cured in some/many cases with strict lifestyle interventions. Ironically, GLP-1s may help move some people towards a functional cure.

Cancer - yes, where possible. The open secret is that the best way to fight cancer is to not get it in the first place, or failing that to catch it very early, but these are issues of lifestyle and public health policy - both of which we're currently very bad at optimising, as a species.

> All the financial upside for pharmaceuticals is in prolonged treatments.

Except for the examples to the contrary.