[aeblyve]

In part because the expiry of patents puts a cap on the return on investment private research can get you.

Patents last for about 25 years, but important innovations have returns far into the future, hundreds of years. At that rate, you would very often be better off accumulating interest on capital anyways.

Notwithstanding the nature of scientific progress as an accumulation of smaller experiences (each individually harder to justify with a profit motive).

Indeed, even privately funded research is often openly published, such as the now-famous paper "attention is all you need". There's just not that much to gain from keeping every single thing under wraps. More to gain with openness.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Even ignoring the limits of patents, how much of this research "pays off"? Do 1% of research grants go towards something tangibly useful, or is it closer to 0.1%?

[biophysboy]

The timeline from preclinical work to a new drug application has a ~5% success rate. A major bottleneck in this is target selection, which research should in principle help with. Giving a number for how much science improves this is iffy, because a lot of research is in fact pointless, with tiny specks of gold. Overall, when comparing money spent vs. its effects (ROI, economic spillover, cost-savings, etc), its definitely worth it.

[whatshisface]

In this climate, close to 100%.