[shoyer]

It is common mistaken belief that drug companies don't have an incentive to find cures.

Cures are actually tremendously profitable. You can charge more money for a cure than drugs for a lifetime of symptom management, because cures result in better outcomes and significant cost savings for the entire healthcare system.

The recent development of cures for Hepatitis C is a perfect case in point. Gilead is pulling in $10B+/year in revenue from these drugs. There has been plenty of outrage about how much Sovaldi costs, but it's still way cheaper than a liver transplant.

That said, you're probably right that it would be difficult to profit directly off of exterminating mosquitoes. That's exactly that sort of research that governments should (and do) fund (search for "gene drives").

[Retric]

Even that fails in comparison to preventing disease. Drugs you give to heathy people for decades are a huge Win-Win. And even vaccines represent a vast and stable market.