do pharmaceutical companies want to find cures? Modern medicine is incredible. But at the same time, pharmaceuticals are a huge industry, when so much money is involved good intentions are some times changed by greed. whats your opinion?

I think that that's more of a person by person kind of thing, the pharmaceutical industry is there to make and distribute drugs to treat aliments, diseases and such. It's not exactly their job to cure a person. Of course they definitely play a roll but you have to rely more on modern science to find cures for things. Like say someone has issues with their back, something only surgery could fix. They'll get pain medication to treat the the pain they get but there isn't a pill you can take to give you a better back. 

styrofoamboots : perhaps this will help you see the point i am trying to make. cures may have not been the right word to describe what i was trying to say. follow the link i think it will make more sense its an interesting piece of literature never the less.

http://news.distractify.com/dark/science/the-shadiest-things-drug-companies-dont-want-you-to-know/

I remember awhile back there being a big case against Ritalin.
A number of doctors testified to receiving bribes to diagnose people with ADD, and prescribe them Ritalin
And a lot of evidence was brought up to suggest that the companies where aware of the harmful side effects, but didn't care 
I was actually diagnosed with ADD and prescribed Ritalin at the age of 9
And the funny thing is I never once saw a doctor.
Nor did I have any attention problems.
My teacher was just boring, and I didn't like him. So, being the little brat I was, I ignored him.
The fact that I had no problems concentrating should have been evident by my straight A's, and presence in a gifted program.
Let me tell you, Ritalin messed me up bad. It actually made me have trouble concentrating, and trouble sitting still.
So, what was the response to that? Let's give him more Ritalin.
Yeah, a lot of that year is a blur in my memory now....

Ritalin is not the first drug that this has happened with, though (nationally I mean, not personally).
This was far from an isolated incident.
And while I don't know if everything in the link you provided is accurate, I've seen actual accounts of a lot of it.

Short answer, no I don't.
Good topic btw

My problem with this is that the link you posted is clearly a one-sided "article".

Obviously as a business they are going to have to make the medications they make and work costly, Millions of pounds of research probably went into making said drug after all, and then you've got to think of all the times that the research failed and there was no positive results. 

No one in their right mind would go, I've just lost Millions finding a cure for migraines.. But because I'm such a nice guy I'm going to give away the drug for free.. Within a year there'd be several copies of that drug being sold therefore losing their company possibly billions of dollars and making their competitor's stronger...

It's clearly just an article designed to create anger at drug companies.. I can guarantee that half of this stuff is probably pure myth or rumour 

I take epilepsy medication, without it i would be dead by now. I don't care if the drug has adverse side affects.. Or costs money to buy.. It maintains the thing that without it I'd have no chance and that's staying alive

Drug companies are amoral, they have no concept of right or wrong - they just go to where the money is and there is more money to be made in finding a cure to baldness and erectile dysfunction over a cure for ebola.

I'm not trying to defend drug companies but you can only blame them so much.

Unfortunately, men like Jonas Salk don't come around too often.

They are a business, not a charity. They aim to make money, and if the treatment is more valuable than the cure, they wont want the cure released.
We desperately need new antibiotics, but that isnt a profitable area, so no companys invest in it.
Its a problem because we could be facing a calamity akin to the plague, in the next 20 years if we dont get new ones.
I wouldnt say companys dont want to find cures, in fact I imagine many have patented treatments at the ready, in case the market changes, or their competitors release a cure for the same problem.

I view it the same as things like healthcare or water. How can you expect company's to place people above profit?
Some do, many more don't.
Some of the most beloved company's have a body trail from here to Africa.
Profit is king.

Do I go for the theory there is a cure for AIDS or Cancer, that hasnt been released? Not really.
Cancer, for one, has many forms, all thats common is they contain defective replicating cells.
Im no expert but I find a one size fits all cure unlikely.
Equally, a cure for either would be a PR bounty. The company that released an affordable cure, saying they cared for the well being of humanity?
Well, they would be the favoured company of choice for medicine for many, many years, the world around. It would make their company immortal, im sure most company's would love to be, 'that guy'.

Thats all speculation though, im not a scientist, I didnt study medicine, and I have no real idea of the true, inner workings of such company's. Most people that discuss it are the same.

Big Pharma only wants to find a cure if it generates big money. Why are the drugs against ebola so scarce? That is because not a lot of people get infected with it. "It is estimated that in the United States, each year on average 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu and more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from seasonal flu-related complications. Flu seasons are unpredictable and can be severe." Taken straight from http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm, this shows that influenza is a highly profitable disease. Greed. Greed. Greed. Ebola kills its victims so quickly that before the host can spread it to too many hundreds of people, unlike the influenza virus, the host tend to die before infecting too many others. At the same time, it is only infectious for a short amount of time and only when the host is showing symptoms. Also it isn't spread through the air. Nope not a very profitable disease at all. There are millions of cancer and autistic patients to treat but not millions of people stricken with Ebola.

Even without big pharma and big money talking, it is still only logical to tackle diseases that affect the most people. back in the 1800s it wasn't about money but you will be labelled the idiot physician if you decide to study Ebola instead of finding a way to treat headaches and broken bones. Nowadays to avoid being idiots, the big pharmas are generating big money from not being idiots and researching too much on small scale diseases. I am using Ebola as a prime example but there are many others. The problem here is that being idiots researching lesser known diseases more often is exactly what we need to do as a society to help circumvent situations like the Ebola outbreak. That enterovirus that is sweeping across the US infecting almost 30 states now? That is taken care of because it is like the cold which is well studied and funded. The Ebola crisis is a wake up call and after this we will see if the big pharmas have awoken or will they stick to their greedy ways for another few decades until more epidemics become pandemics and ravage the global human population. I think only think only then will their greedy eyes be opened.

Staying Healthy,
TitaniumOxide

Ok, granted, you can't expect a company to be altruistic and benevolent
Even one that's supposed to be in the business of helping people
As a lot of people are saying, they are following the profits, which makes sense
However, there is still such a thing as Business Ethics, believe it or not
And these typical ethics are largely ignored by most pharmaceutical companies
No, there's no cloaked villain sitting at the CEO desk, twirling his paper thin mustache and laughing maniacally
But you still find these companies making moves that are very questionable even by business standards.
Quite possibly even illegal if you believe many of the accounts.
While there is no malice in it, it's still a low standard and should not be brushed off.

EDIT; I forgot the main topic was do pharmaceutical companies want to find cures, lol
In that specific instance, I can understand that not being their main concern.
While I think cures should be researched, I can't fault pharmaceutical companies for not being the ones to do so
My comment was on the practices of these companies as a whole though
Outside of this specific topic, I think there is a lot they can be faulted for.

They want to find cures because cures sell drugs which satisfy the drug companies' business of building share holder portfolios.  Money can motivate people to be nice, wonderful, kind people.  They don't care if people are helped or not but people need cures and they (people) pay money for cures.

Therefore, curing people is excellent because it drives money.  So, the companies want to cure as many people as possible because a flood of money comes their way and they make more money hand over fist.

Companies also select which diseases and problems they cure.  Not many people can pay for AIDS drugs.  Rich old white men can afford drugs to keep them excited during sex.  Viagra works.  ATZ is still out there barely holding on.  Drug companies pick which things they fix based on the ability to make money.

I'm just echoing what's already been said in this thread, but they're greedy mofos who have no issue in profiting from illness. There's a cure for AIDS. Magic Johnson came out a long time ago saying he had AIDS. He then vanished for a while, and came back, good as new. There's a cure for cancer. A group of scientists up in Canada cured cancer in mice using a combination of non patented ingredients. No patent means they can't charge out the ass for ingredients. Without being able to charge out the ass for ingredients, there's very little profit to be made, thus big pharmaceutical companies ignored it. As it stands, they're making a ton of cash on AIDS and cancer, so why cure it when you have people that have to keep coming back to you for medication on the chance of getting better?

No, they want to keep the pathogen in question "at bay", curing the pathogen in question would plummet sales, if we exterminated the common cold, cold medicine would be obsolete and profits would plummet faster than the Beatles.

I think they don't, personally. They seem more worried about making money. If you look into it, the better chance of success or efficiency of a medicine or treatment, the more costly it is. If that doesn't tell you something, then I don't know what will.