Cost of developing new drugs may be lower than industry claims: trial

Sometimes I think that this attitude will cause the western world to become a second tier world. How can you build a sustainable world where this level of greed is accepted and even lobbied into political levels.

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. "

The dead sibling comment really exposes how a good fraction of people in the western world think.

But truly greed was the real primary motivator of technological progress for the past centuries. Not the desire to benefit humanity.

They say greed kills the greedy person.

A pharmaceutical company can capitalize on current successes and have enough to hire 1,000 research scientists for future developments.

Or they could take "just enough", hire 10 research scientists, and potentially not make the next breakthrough. Or the company just dies.