Explode prices for this first 5 years, maybe it would. But then, the improvement would have to be enough over the most recent generic that the consumer would actually pay the increase.

As to not investing in cures, I'm not saying they don't at all, but they allocate resources towards the best return on capital. And I'd ask you to apply your own reasoning, that "Its much easier to recover 1B investment over 20 years than 5" to which gives an easier return on capital.

Of course, implicit in that is that it's less risky to fund research in incremental improvements than on outright cures- but I'm open to being taught differently on that.

EDIT: fixing jumbled words