The limiting factor in drug development is not creating the drug, but in testing it. I'd like to see a biohacking approach to drug testing.
Before Jenner, there were groups inoculating people with actual Smallpox (typically in the nose, because it was quicker to recover from). The Chinese started doing that 500 years ago, and it was even used by troops in the American revolutionary war. Some of those people would die of course, but the ones who recovered would have an immunity.
A lot of people may have died from many of these early tests, but so many people were dying it didn't quite matter.
We need testing. It's the only way we can have confidence in our medical system.
This is the old ethics question: There is a highjacked planebfull of passengers flying towards a football stadium. Should it be shut down?
Many contemporary societies lean towards not shooting as you can't compare deaths.
Regarding vaccines the current approach is to first try it out on animals and then do controlled clinical studies with healthy test subjects etc. Still some people do suffer from those for the greater good.
If the government is willing to suspend these[0] in order to fast track vaccine development, then why isn't this the default for all new drug development?
The answer is political expediency, of course.
[0]https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2020/08/14/57...