> No, the reason it is expensive is because we've signalled that we are willing to pay large amounts of money, essentially regardless of the actual benefit extended by the state of the art treatment.

Not the cost of medicine, the cost of medical research. If finding a cure for cancer wasn't expensive then either we've been doing something very wrong or we should have found it already.

And if it's expensive then the reward has to meet the expense in order to get someone to do it.