The people who benefit are those who can raise funds/support for the next round. It is more difficult to obtain objective evidence about biological sciences an

The people who benefit are those who can raise funds/support for the next round. It is more difficult to obtain objective evidence about biological sciences and its subset, medicine, than other fields such as maths or chemistry. This is due to the inherent complexity and poorly understood processes by which living organisms thrive, or not. So, there is abundant interest from non-experts (i.e. potential investors or market analysts) in gaining a slice of attractive markets such as currently unmet conditions e.g. lung cancer or Alzheimer's disease. Such people are sometimes more easily swayed by the proclamations of "famous professors" than graduate students might be. So, yes, there is in effect a lot of "vapourware" in the drug business. And much of it succeeds precisely because there is insufficient expertise on the behalf of investors, who get their knowledge of the underlying science third hand, or worse.