This attitude is so stupid. You could:

1) milk a dumb problem you've already solved, making very moderate profit, or

2) solve it and move onto more interesting problems, continuing to make money

It's a legitimate question. The article is about gene theraphy, and its potential to cure chronic genetic diseases.

If you create a startup that after a decade creates an affordable and effective gene theraphy for type II diabetes, and most of people recover, will your startup survive curing only new cases of it? Will it be able to tackle another disease before your coffers dry up?

The question can be viewed as greedy companies wanting to milk diseases forever, or as a sustainability issue. Being able to cure chronic diseases affordably will probably become a new socioeconomic challenge.