Someone has said there are just too many jobs in the pursuit of a cancer cure to allow any therapy to be proven and put into practice.  Recognize the nation is dotted with cancer research centers that hold billions of dollars of debt.  For example, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington holds $176 million of debt.  [Moody's Investor Service] Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the nation's cancer research center, holds $1.9 billion of debt.  [Moody's Investor Service]  A cancer cure would leave research centers like these on the hook for loans that could not possibly be paid back. 

Better for cancer research centers to live off the $4.95 billion of research grants that get divvied out by the National Institutes of Health each year than to find a cure. 

In light of this revelation, the public may be better served by private enterprise that is not reliant on public funding to find a cure for cancer. 

While Facebook co-founder Sean Parker has pledged $250 million towards a "moon shot" attempt to cure cancer, donating his money to six cancer research centers [USA Today April 13, 2016], another entrepreneur operating clinics he founded in Austria and Germany is way ahead of the pack having successfully treated thousands of patients, though he had to resurrect a dismissed cancer therapy from its grave, undergo closure of his company by health authorities and incur severe criticism to do it. 

New era of immunotherapy

Before I get to that compelling story, let me say cancer therapy is undergoing a massive change.  The slash-burn-poison era of cancer therapy may be over.  The age of cancer immunotherapy has begun.  And I'm not the person saying this.  Many cancer researchers are saying immunotherapy is already replacing chemo.  Just how much longer conventional oncologists can continue to subject their patients to harsh of cancer treatments is unknown. 

An article entitled: "Cancer Immunotherapy: The Beginning Of The End Of Cancer," says: "the tide has finally changed and immunotherapy has become a clinically validated treatment for cancer cancers."  [BMC Medicine]