If Big Pharma developed treatments-rather-than-cures as a deliberate strategy to milk recurring revenue, biotech startups could ignore those recurring treatment

If Big Pharma developed treatments-rather-than-cures as a deliberate strategy to milk recurring revenue, biotech startups could ignore those recurring treatments and take over the market with easier-or-equally-difficult-to-find one shot cures that doctors, patients, and insurance companies would all prefer. But it turns out that Biology is Hard and the indefinite treatments are still used because neither incumbents nor startups have been able to find drugs that are once-and-for-all cures for diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson's, etc. It's the same reason we don't have Mr. Fusion powering our cars instead of liquid hydrocarbons: not because the sinister oil cartels are suppressing technology, but because developing that sort of breakthrough is extremely hard.