Comment by margalabargala

There are a lot of doctors and researchers running research arms of large, well funded institutions. Sloan Kettering for example.

I'll grant you that that is a low percentage of the total US medical research spend. But also, most of the world does not have the same profit motive; in most Western countries, a cure is categorically cheaper for everyone than a chronic illness, because healthcare is paid for by taxpayers. And countries besides the US do plenty of medical research.

If the hypothesis were true that there exist cures to many diseases that simply haven't been explored due to profit motive, then I would expect countries without that profit motive to have a higher proportion of cures among their medical.discoveries than the US. I don't believe that is true though.

Basically my point is that the effect you mention likely has little actual impact on the larger medical field.