It turns out that pressure to keep patentable information private for potential profit slows the rate of progress in biotech.

See http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/... for an example of how much things improve when scientists are forced to share data. They wouldn't have done it if Mike Milken hadn't forced the issue. But he wanted to live enough to do so, and the result saves several thousand lives each year.