Goldman Sachs asks in biotech Report: Is curing patients a sustainable business? (2018)

What a lot of folks neglect are N+1-order effects, because those are harder to quantify and fail to reach the predetermined decision some executive or board or shareholder has already made. Is curing patients a bad business model? Sure, for the biotech company it is, but those cured patients are far more likely to go on living longer, healthier lives, and in turn contribute additional value to society - which will impact others in ways that may also create additional value. That doesn't even get into the jobs and value created through the R&D process, testing, manufacturing, logistics of delivery, ongoing monitoring, etc. As long as the value created is more than the cost of the treatment, then it's a net-gain for the economy even if it's a net loss for that singular business.

If all you're judging is the first-order impacts on a single business, you're missing the forest for the trees.

Because death is not technically a disease, right now if a company came up with a literal immortality pill they wouldn't be able to get it patented or get FDA approval for it.

If you invent a pill that gives old people the mental and physical vigor of 25 year olds, you don't need to patent or trial it as an immortality pill. Just pick one of the many medical conditions associated with advancing age, like osteoporosis or male pattern baldness, and prove that it safely and effectively treats that condition. If the pill cures baldness and also gives patients improved muscle tone and working memory as a side effect, the FDA won't complain about those beneficial side effects.

Once the drug is approved for treating baldness it can be prescribed off-label for other conditions and/or the manufacturer can progressively run trials for treating additional conditions, similar to how GLP-1 drugs originally developed for diabetes treatment have now been tested and approved for treating obesity.