The difference is, this seems like real science, not wishful thinking.

There could well be enough pressure from the public to make sure this gets a fair crack of the whip, but cancer is a rather special case, threatening everybody as it does. The episode certainly does raise questions about the drug development industry, and about the systemic clash that is always potentially there between the goal of profit and the goal of utility.

In the real world we don't actually have textbook free markets, we have imperfect markets and managed markets. "Free markets" bear the same relation tom the real world as perpetual motion machines. True enough, without friction a perpetual motion machine would run for ever, but the fact is, the world isn't like that.