Just as a vaccine is different from a maintenance drug in terms of manufacturing and makeup, it is fundamentally different from an economic perspective. A pharmaceutical company can count on a regular and predictable market for the maintenance drugs its customers will take every day, often for the rest of their lives. For the major noncommunicable illnesses like cancer, manufacturers know they will have a steady market because the diseases are not going away anytime soon, and they can charge a lot of money for their drugs as long as their patent monopoly lasts.
