The same greed makes the drug industry to develop drugs which treat the illness rather than cure it. Regular drug users are much better for them than one-time users.
That is a very real statement, which I personally experienced, BTW. I had a health issue and my default option was to address to a private clinic which had good image and publicity. Their attention to clients was irreproachable, ("clients" instead of "patients" is intentional inhere,) but they were elusive when I asked them for estimates on time of treatment and money. This marked some red flags for me and I was in response elusive about my decision to start the treatment right away. I started to dig a little bit on patient's experience with the said clinic and found not-so-encouraging feedback (mixed with a lot of downplay and apologism). I then turned to public health care service. It was frustrating (as expected) but they weren't trying to lure me in some kind of "relationship" and were straight to the chase. Public health should not be left to business.
While I have no love for the incentive structure for drug companies, I agree that conspiracies about them deliberately prolonging sickness are nonsense.
Imagine the kudos that would go to the researchers and the company that cured the common cold! And a pill for that would sell well enough to offset the losses from palliative lozenges, decongestants, etc. And it's not like they are short of other pills to sell.
