A physician friend of mine explained it: If you're desperate by overwhelming numbers of patients, and there's a drug that may work, you do a "study", which mean

A physician friend of mine explained it: If you're desperate by overwhelming numbers of patients, and there's a drug that may work, you do a "study", which means you give it to some of the patients and afterwards publish a paper with numbers based on the data you collect. Ie. some studies are motivated by battlefield desperation, not by scientific curiosity or someone's need for a publication.