[HeyLaughingBoy]

I hear this argument all the time and it ignores one fundamental fact: there is more than one large pharmaceutical company and they don't all make $disease_x_treatment.

That one company makes billions selling a treatment for a disease has no bearing on a competing company making a cure for that disease and cornering the market. If anything, it's the very definition of a market-driven solution to a problem.

Now, it's true that there are diseases which are so rare that it's not commercially worth developing a cure, and perhaps government funding is useful in that case but that's a completely different topic.

[LaGrange]

"That one company makes billions selling a treatment for a disease has no bearing on a competing company making a cure for that disease and cornering the market." But it's actually more efficient to develop a treatment for the second company.

It's better to share an extremely big market with a competitor than to corner it while making it much smaller. The goal is not to destroy all competition, it's to make more money.

[Tuna-Fish]

Yes, but what if you have no presence at all in that extremely big market?

In addition to the big ones, there are dozens of smaller companies with the cash and the experience in drug development that would jump at the opportunity to cure type 1 diabetes. Unless the risks vastly outweigh the rewards, which seems to have been the case here.

[LaGrange]

If you have "no presence at all" then you either have no money, in which case you can't really afford entering it (in this case, anyway), or you have the money, but then the above rules still apply. Effectively it would be better to market your mediocre product to physicians than to kill the cash-cow.

Also, large risks are actually typical for this type of research. It's expensive and risky, so it has to give really large rewards. Research for completely new cures is even more risky and expensive, and the rewards are smaller.

[yummyfajitas]

Google had no presence at all in the spreadsheet market in 2005. I guess they really couldn't afford to enter the spreadsheet market.

Too bad, because if google had money, and the above rules didn't apply, then google might create a free spreadsheet web service that competes with MS Excel even at the risk of destroying a gigantic cash cow owned by somebody else.

[Vivtek]

Software doesn't require clinical trials before it is approved for use. So this argument really doesn't convince me; the capital bar to new products in the medical field is truly staggering.

[LaGrange]

Spreadsheets are not drugs. Mostly.

Developing and deploying a spreadsheet is cheaper and less risky than developing and deploying a completely new drug.

[yummyfajitas]

It's not significantly cheaper or less risky than developing and deploying a completely new type of car or space ship. So Tesla and SpaceX should not exist.

Developing a drug is also not cheaper than developing a new type of computer chip for use in tablet computers aimed at disrupting the PC market (all attempts thus far have been failures). So by your logic, Apples A4 chip should not exist.

Amazon received about $100 million at their IPO, and considerable pre-IPO money in the hopes of disrupting retail. Also a very risky proposition, which by your logic should never have occurred.

[Avshalom]

This is about cure versus treat. Google is trying to enter the spreadsheet market, not destroy it.

As an analogy Google Docs falls safely on the treatment side of the fence.

[yummyfajitas]

Google is trying to get 100% of the spreadsheet market with the goal of selling ads and maybe some corporate subscriptions.

If successful, they will destroy a vastly larger market (commercial spreadsheet software). Google would rather have 100% of a small pie than 0% of a big pie.

Similarly, Diabetes Cure, Inc would rather have 100% of the diabetes cure market than 0% of the insulin market, even if the latter market is bigger.