Notably, the headline here oversells the actual content.
Goldman is rightly pointing out that gene therapy cures require heavy research but don't provide long term revenue streams.
It doesn't claim that they shouldn't be pursued, or that people should be kept sick. It doesn't even say gene therapy companies offering cures are bad investments! Rather, it points out that they offer high returns over limited durations, and will have to constantly hunt new treatments and target popular diseases. All of which, I note, describes Gilead perfectly.
I think you and Goldman are both right, while the headline writer is misunderstanding the actual memo.
In fact, this is a really common thing we see in the market/government dichotomy: the market doesn't, and shouldn't, have a stomach for long term, high risk plays that could possibly benefit all of society. That's not the point. The government handles those levels of investments on a much longer time scale, allowing the market to exploit the technological platforms made by our government. We see this pattern with the space race, the internet etc.: government does the big heavy lifting in the 20-40 year time frame, then VC and the market comes along and "digests" those changes for the marketplace.
Thanks very much for this - I'm excited for the book, since I've believed the general outline of this concept for a while now.
Despite all the outrage over this memo, all I can really think is "yes, what a great argument for state-sponsored medical R&D." Questioning the profitability of a market doesn't determine the profitability of that market, and if something socially-valuable turns out not to be market-friendly, that's an obvious case for state intervention.
(If someone made me Emperor, I'd probably pick a deregulated, free-market approach but increase state research spending by an order of magnitude.)
Goldman is rightly pointing out that gene therapy cures require heavy research but don't provide long term revenue streams.
It doesn't claim that they shouldn't be pursued, or that people should be kept sick. It doesn't even say gene therapy companies offering cures are bad investments! Rather, it points out that they offer high returns over limited durations, and will have to constantly hunt new treatments and target popular diseases. All of which, I note, describes Gilead perfectly.
I think you and Goldman are both right, while the headline writer is misunderstanding the actual memo.