Why you can't always trust big pharma's version of "medical research", literally 9 times out of ten it is not true and the US pharmaceutical industry presently ranks as the third leading cause of death in America.(1)
Medicine is older than the patent medicine industry yet without a patent, industry would not give a cure for cancer a second glance and this is provable: look at the Salvestrol story.
(1) (Ref: Starfield B (July 2000). "Is US health really the best in the world?". JAMA 284 (4): 483–5. doi:10.1001/jama.284.4.483. PMID 10904513).