[XorNot]

Technology happens when the environment is right for it, not randomly.

A breakthrough happens because the research community, available technology and it's economics are pointing in that direction anyway, even if the exact moment can't be known: i.e. Newton and Leibniz both inventing calculus around the same time.

If you're a pharma company and you find the cure for AIDS, then the race is on: someone else is very likely to find it within the same time frame (you know, if none of your thousands of employees decides to just leak it in its entirety).

There will be no market for for product if you don't get to market first: because anyone else will conclude the same.

"Suppressing the cure" doesn't happen. There are too many people involved, and no one goes into bioscience to not help people - the actual scientists don't get paid enough for that.