What's The Fallacy In This Statement

Extra brownie points for the first correct answer.

1.) An academic scientist designs an experiment to answer an important question.

2.) The scientist applies to the government to fund the research.

3.) The money pays for students and fellows who conduct the research.

4.) The results are published in journals, which advance the field.

5.) An invention may result. This may lead to a patent, which then is licensed to a start-up company.

6.) With a monopoly granted by the patent, the company attracts venture capital. If it is successful, the company grows.

7.) Years later, the discovery becomes a therapy for patients.

It takes $28.8 billion, the annual budget of the NIH, to prime this machine. Every year, the money generates an astonishing amount of fundamental knowledge and thousands of biomedical discoveries. With no initial funding, this apparatus stops at Step 1.

HatTip: Prometheus