Pharmacist Jacob explains why pharmaceutical companies invest heavily in chronic treatments rather than cures: a cure means one payment, while chronic illness means ongoing revenue. About 90% of R&D funding targets chronic diseases, creating a system that rewards managing illness over eliminating it.
If a company cures you, it gets paid once. But if it creates a treatment and helps you manage a disease for 30 years, it can get paid every month, like a subscription, like Netflix. What business model do you think investors are interested in? I'm Jacob. I'm a pharmacist. I'm asking the hard question. I'm looking at the pharma problem, which is at its core an incentive problem. Now, that doesn't mean pharma companies have a cure for some disease hidden in the basement next to the Ark of the Covenant, It also doesn't mean that they're actively looking for those cures either. The problem starts way before the drug ever hits the pharmacy and lies with incentives for the drug company who pays for all the research. 90% of that, the CDC says, goes to chronic illnesses. Pharma has built a massive machine managing illness. Daily pills, monthly refills, and doctor's visits every 3 months are part of a system that's hard to break. A cure would be incredibly valuable, but financially risky. Pharmaceutical companies are not inherently evil for following the incentives. That's just the way business works. We follow the money incentives. People invest in what they can get returns on, and cures just don't bring returns. The pharma problem isn't that every company is not trying to create cures. The problem is we built a system that financially rewards treating a disease rather than curing it. And that's the true Pharma problem.
