I've worked for a huge WW pharmaceutical company and had them as a customer. It was clear that they are in it for the money. There was never any altruistic objectives. As such fair enough in a capitalistic society - we should just not think its anything else. The best was is to have someone addicted to your products or services and you can increase the revenue and profits from it. This sets pharma companies up for lots of conflicting decisions. No pharma CEO would ever get rewarded for coming up with a cure that leads to less revenue or even making his company superfluous

The scientists that do the research have families and may also need a cure for themselves so if a cure exists someone someware would try to use and or leak that information. The companies can slow progress but they can’t stop it because humans are not all that good at keeping a secret. Nothing stays a secret forever unless nobody cares. As I type this I’m sitting across the table from my mother, it would be a good time for someone to leak a cure for dementia.