> New drugs come from universities, and from people motivated by the combination of public-spiritedness and academic success. Ahh, hmm, I'm wanting to ask if y

> New drugs come from universities, and from people motivated by the combination of public-spiritedness and academic success. Ahh, hmm, I'm wanting to ask if you know anyone working on drugs without sounding rude. In my experience they are like doctors. Lilly researchers do enjoy the thought of helping people, but mostly in the abstract. In the concrete they like complaining about people and regulation :) they also very much like living the "good life". I'm not saying we'd lose all drug researchers if it were nationalized, but I do think we'd lose a lot of them -- at the end of the day, most people do want money, and end up being motivated to pursue careers which are financially rewarded. A full time doctors without borders just wouldn't work IMO. As to the claim that drugs come from universities... You can take an interesting research finding and turn it into a potential drug... but there's a tremendous amount of work remaining, which isn't particularly interesting / researchy, and still requires someone very smart to do it. Essentially the more financially motivated people in academia are the ones who volunteer for what is often a fool's errand (a failed drug). I think the "new drugs come from universities" position is also true in the sense that "biologists get degrees from university" -- but as others pointed out, that sense is true for all industries.