Why would I want a cure?

What Sharon doesn't understand is that there is absolutely no logical reason why a pharmaceutical company would want to develop a cure for anything. Pharmaceutical companies have a simple business model: treat and treat and treat but don't cure.

Let me put it in analogical terms: if you had a car that never needed maintenance and never wore down, then you'd never buy another car. Curing diseases eliminates repeat customers. But people who try cholesterol medication after cholesterol medication drive a huge profit for drug companies that spent millions on research.

Many promising fields of medical research, like a stem-cell treatment for ALS, never get the funding they need and the research they require from large corporations. Obviously, when you can give a 5 drug cocktail to treat the symptoms but not the disease, milking money out of the patient for years, you stand a lot more financially solid than if you administered a single injection and never saw the person again.