The difference between a one-shot cure and a chronic treatment is that the former is sold to customers and the latter turns customers into exploitable assets. I

The difference between a one-shot cure and a chronic treatment is that the former is sold to customers and the latter turns customers into exploitable assets. If I own a cow, and I milk the cow for all the cow is worth so that I can sell the cow's milk in the market, is the cow my "customer"? Because I give the cow feed and a barn in exchange, whatever it needs so that it can keep giving me milk? A free market works when players have information symmetry and can make free decisions of sound mind. We otherwise resort to regulation, for example to rein in natural monopolies. Regarding chronic treatments, there's nothing the government can do (within this narrow focus) to reduce demand - but the government can set the rules. Specifically, the government can regulate that pharmaceutical companies must balance their research spending between chronic treatments and one-shot cures, rather than going all-in on chronic treatments. The government can set a lifetime cap on revenue from an individual patient for a given drug, such a cap being formulated on the basis of the cost of development and the number of expected patients (i.e. market size - larger markets will have more patients and a lower cap per patient needed to recoup the cost of development), with production guarantees (since the per-unit cost of doses is trivial) for after the lifetime cap is reached. Indeed, such a production guarantee could be met with a publicly-owned-and-funded company tasked with producing generic versions of drugs for patients who have hit their lifetime cap - essentially, a generic drug company prohibited from selling to customers who haven't proven that they have paid more than the lifetime cap, which produces generic versions of drugs still protected under patent, which is now re-defined not as the exclusive right to manufacture but the exclusive right to manufacture and sell without restriction.