• ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    That’s just not true, and it’s been shown over and over again.

    The prognosis for a disease treatment that’s regular enough to be more profitable than a cure over time, but doesn’t cure the underlying disease (or send it into remission), is typically measured in months. For glioblastoma in particular, that average is 12-18 months.

    You’re not talking about bilking people out of treatment for decades, you’re talking about getting maybe a year. Even the most misanthropic pharmaceutical executive (and let’s be honest, they all are) would look at that calculation and say “nah, if we can cure it, we can charge way more and people will pay it. People will pay just about anything for a cure.”

    This is why cancer remission rates have gone up by 30% or more in the past fifty years. It’s just way more lucrative to cure a disease than to try to keep people alive, but not cured. That tightrope is just too thin for them to walk reliably and make any profit.