Private pharmaceutical R&D spending in the U.S. is around $100bn per year [1]. NIH spends another $50bn a year on biomedical research [2].
That eclipses total investments into adtech per se, which generously counted shouldn’t exceed $50 to 60bn. (And that only by counting like a third to a half of Google, Amazon, et cetera R&D and capital spending as adtech.) More precisely counted, it probably doesn’t exceed $10bn.
[1] https://phrma.org/blog/phrma-member-companies-rd-investments...
[2] https://www.science.org/content/article/final-nih-budget-202...
Factors that would make it more attractive our lower interest rates, higher returns, or faster development.
All of these are theoretically possible to adjust, but the last is most feasible to do in a tailor-made way through FDA review and approval reform. An ambitious example would be allowing conditional Market approval after Phase 2 and treating phase 3 deliverables as post-market commitments.
Advancing the revenue curve two to three years while maintaining the same patent expiration dates can dramatically change the ROI of a pharmaceutical development program.
Beyond this, even conditional Market allowance allows firms to better gauge Market interest and validate Financial investment models sooner.
Similarly, there's also some really low hanging fruit in this area to help manufacturers get to Market faster. For example, the FDA approval of trade names and label content is one of the last steps in Market authorization. Moving this earlier in the process would help products itself sooner and start producing Revenue sooner. Imagine having your billion dollar annual revenue shift out a quarter because the FDA wanted some last minute change to how a cartoon belly button looks in the instructions for use.
As a result, life science researchers are more price-taking than proce-setting when it comes to their wages / salary. If money is the motivator, then the market as-is isn’t addressing this one.
Then the money will flow.
Cancer prevention is downstream from that, as cancer frequency grows exponentially with age. If you can truly rejuvenate a person, you will also reduce their risk of cancer.
Adtech works because there is a lot of money in it. There is a lot of money in it because people seek quick entertainment, and we have a LOT of people driving the demand.
Now compare that to cancer research. There's no short term gratification about it.
And even more brilliant minds are defeating it, every day. I have doubts about how useful they would be in a research lab.
There's a wide world outside big tech, Silicon Valley, and software in general. It only tends to be a bit less visible online.
Also wonder, outside of politics and economics, whether there's a social and cultural component that can contribute. TV shows, movies, books, and other forms of media that put science and scientists in the spotlight in a positive light can be tremendously inspirational.