25 years is a worst-case situation, where it turns out that this particular method doesn't actually help much.
But when you're dealing with biology, and particularly human biology, you are subject to iterating at the speed of the biology. Depending on the type of cancer, accruing enough people so that you can actually determine efficacy and then waiting to see how the people do on the treatment can take easily 5 years, perhaps 15.
And while a huge number of treatments look promising at this stage of development, the vast majority end up not being effective. The chances of success, amount of effort, and potential monetary payoff to the basic researchers, are all less favorable than a startup.
But when you're dealing with biology, and particularly human biology, you are subject to iterating at the speed of the biology. Depending on the type of cancer, accruing enough people so that you can actually determine efficacy and then waiting to see how the people do on the treatment can take easily 5 years, perhaps 15.
And while a huge number of treatments look promising at this stage of development, the vast majority end up not being effective. The chances of success, amount of effort, and potential monetary payoff to the basic researchers, are all less favorable than a startup.