Again is this to cure or "treat" cancer.
Most drugs for cancer are developed with the intention to cure. Unfortunately, in most cases their results are not always very good. People don't seem to understand that cancer is a covenient way of lumping together several hundred radically different diseases, which have one thing in common - they're part of the bodies own tissues which has lost the ability to stop growing and to self-destruct. How do you destroy tissue, which won't kill itself after a serious injury, but which is extremely similar to the rest of the tissues in the body, which will kill itself if injured? Indeed, one of the things that has come from research into potential treatments and cures for cancers, is that even groups of cancers that had traditionally been thought to be a single disease - may actually be a whole set of different diseases.
There are other issues too - in that it takes many years, if not decades for a drug to be tested and for experience to be gained in its use. New drugs are almost always used as 'last ditch' attempts, after every other treatment has already been tried. Only if a drug proves effective and safe in that situation does its use get extended to be used at earlier and earlier stages. It isn't ethically acceptable to test a brand new drug with only limited data, directly against an established treatment.
Certainly, there are good successes - with some cancers, like some types of testicular cancer, certain gynaecological cancers, and some blood disorders, it's unusual not to be cured with current treatment.
My dad's a pharmacist. He told me a dirty little secret: most of the top 'drug companies' do little or no R&D. They let others do it, then buy the formula IF they think they can market it. These companies exist solely to make their shareholders happy.
Don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.
I did check it out. He's completely wrong. Every single one of the major pharmaceutical companies has an enormous R&D budget - GSK, AZN, Pfizer, Wyeth, Roche, Bayer, Lilly, Novartis all have R&D budgets in the multiple billions. Several have budgets exceeding $5 billion.
Yes, a lot of drugs are bought up by the major companies - but unfortunately, this is often the only way to get them to market. Current estimates of the cost to bring a drug to market are approx $200-400 million. You also have to remember that not every drug launched to market will be a commercial success and recoup its development costs. In general it's only big pharma that can afford to run the trials to get regulatory approval.
