Comment by simiones

> Since the people with the money don't understand the science, these possibilities must then be assessed by bureaucrats, and this causes our best to spend half of their time writing proposals instead of working and researching. A complete waste of time.

What part of this changes when a company is paying for the research, and why can't that same part be used in a government office? It's not like drug company CEOs and CFOs are also world class medical researchers. And if the funding decisions are entirely done by a CTO who is, then why would this model not be possible in a government office?

Ultimately someone needs to pay for all of the trials that don't work, and someone needs to do a cost/benefit/likelihood analysis on any research to decide whether it will be funded or not. With a public funding scheme, the benefit analysis could be based on public health interests. With a private company funding scheme, it has to be based on profitability. In healthcare, there is usually a huge gap between these two, unlike other more traditional markets.