It's not that simple. Drugs that make it through FDA safety testing are valuable even if they prove ineffective for their original intent, because they've been

It's not that simple. Drugs that make it through FDA safety testing are valuable even if they prove ineffective for their original intent, because they've been proven to be at least not immediately deadly to humans. It's much cheaper to test an already-safety-tested drug for curing other diseases than to start developing a new drug from scratch. In fact, this is most of the research that major pharmaceuticals are currently doing. It's actually quite effective, but I do worry that it's detracting from research into new drugs.