I think that the scientists who might develop the basic building blocks of advanced pharaceuticals and delivery devices may be enticed to work on the projects regardless of the profit. These people
are motivated by curiousity and the desire to publish such work in
Nature or
Science. It will make their career.
However, the money problem is in distribution. If you remove the profit margin, then you remove the impetus for large corporations to develop the drug so they can distribute it, etc. Fine.
To use the A-bomb analogy, notice it wasn't private corporations that developed the bomb nor "distributed" it.
Quote:
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So what to do about AIDS? "If the governments of the world want HIV drugs at reduced cost, then they should pay for them," comes Hansch's answer. "If they want to force companies to do research, give them money." For his part, he would dig deep into the world's collective pocket to pay for additional health care for the poor and the imperiled.
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Whether right or wrong, the
AIDS problem isn't perceived to be a great enough threat at present for the need for the cure to outweigh fiscal obligations. When you consider that we (the US) are essentially sending an "abstinence only" delegation to the conference, you can guess that the furtherance of science and its distribution isn't really too high on our agenda.
At least that my opinion.