[aantix]

>The overwhleming majority of exploratory, pre-clinical, and early-phase clinical research is already funded by government grants, particularly from the CDC and NIH.

The overwhelming number of SAAS prototypes are made by engineers on the weekends - just take a few of those, and $$$, profit.

... Of course not. Exploratory, initial research is not the same as being successful at bringing a drug to market.

Who decides what research to follow? It's successful in animal models, but then later not in humans? Or fails the one of the clinical phase trials. Or isn't safe.

Drug companies fail. Even if something is promising initially, doesn't make it a slam dunk.

Billions can be spent only to have a potential drug sunk by one of the trials.

There are absolute risks. There are tough decisions to be made on which looks most promising and given that money and time and researchers aren't infinite, you have to make the calls on what looks most promising.

[InvisibleCities]

The questions and issues you pose are real, but they apply equally regardless of whether the decisions about research funding are made by for-profit pharmaceutical corporations or a panel of government experts. I posit that the latter is preferable because they are accountable to the public, whereas the former are accountable only to their shareholders and profitability metrics.