Well, if you own the patent on the only approved drug for the condition, it would make financial sense.
NOTE: I am emphatically not asserting that this is the case with SARS-CoV-2. I am only responding to the parent comment's criticism of a possible financial motive for hypothetical biotech companies to purposefully engineer pathogens for profit.
NOTE: I am emphatically not asserting that this is the case with SARS-CoV-2. I am only responding to the parent comment's criticism of a possible financial motive for hypothetical biotech companies to purposefully engineer pathogens for profit.