It can be straight monetary return, because they want to do something great for society. It really doesn't matter because the system overall works to reward people only if there's new treatments that change disease. I had my own life saved by a modern drug. I developed severe peritonitis, what you get if your appendix explodes. In fact, at that time, I was delighted that they would make a fortune off of this antibiotic because my life was saved because I was able to get that.
People confuse patenting genes with patenting life.
You know, genes and the genetic code, they're inert elements in our bodies in combination with the whole rest of the system. They're part of the functional unit. It's like having the computer program tape out of your computer. When it's out of the computer, it's just information. It's not part of human life.