Advance

You may ask, "Aren't there real advances in medical treatment ?"

Yes, of course. The very fact is, however, the magnitude of improvement (or, as some extra-terrestrials who are obsessive in evidence-based medicine loved to say, the absolute risk reduction) is declining. (Well, there aren't very many common conditions that has 50% mortality in short term - except perhaps the victim of homicide secondary to psychiatric manifestation of acute hypoglycemia during a lunchtime meeting sine lunch with organisms in Pluto; I just had one earlier today.)

What's the result ? Since we need large trials to prove a small benefit, clinical studies are more and more influenced by pharmaceutical (i.e. business !) companies. As you can predict, the more the participant, the more the mishappenings - which means more controls and bureaucratic formalities.

That's the short term effect. In the long run, the cost to prove a product being superior would increase exponentially - eventually outweight any monetary return from the successful product. (Note also that with more control and bureaucracy, the chance of having a successful product - in terms of getting it on to the market - is ever decreasing.)

Would there be a point when no new drug would be developed because it is just too expensive to prove effective ?

PS. For those not familiar with Latin, "sine" means "without".