Comment by jleyank

If you want new disease treatments and cures, you need to fund applied science (using the aforementioned definitions). Follow-on compounds can almost be engineered, but finding novel targets and coming up with candidates is a research problem. And dealing with the side-effects that appear can flip back from engineering to science. The Ozempic class of compounds has done wonders driving research in obesity and (I think) addictive behaviours.

Bringing it to market requires money and management and luck. Many/most of the promising candidates fall out along the way.