I don't know, ask Alexander Fleming maybe. To save lives? Make the life better for scores of other people, no matter their nationality or class? Why do you even do research, just for the bilions?
not a great example, Penicillin was only made possible due to government funding to refine the manufacturing process for war
>As to the chemical isolation and purification, Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford took up the research to mass-produce it, which they achieved with support from World War II military projects under the U.S. and British governments
and you could make the case that if the Allies just handed that research over to their enemies it would prolong the war