The problem is the overwhelming majority of 17 year olds don't know enough to make useful pharma research. And other than research not much really scales well-enough to be worth 30 million.
Think of it this way computer research goes back around 100 years, medical research goes back well over 2,000 years. There is simply less low hanging fruit left.
PS: Consider this there is a large but finite number of reasonably stable chemicals with 10 atoms or less. All of them have been considered as to there medical impacts. (There toxicity if nothing else.)
> The problem is the overwhelming majority of 17 year olds don't know enough to make useful pharma research.
There's more to it than that. The reason why the overwhelming majority of 17 year olds don't know enough to make useful pharma research is because it's not so easy to learn those skills and gain that knowledge.
Any 17 year old can teach himself to code and get valuable, real-world programming experience (and an actual job, for that matter) with nothing more than a laptop and an internet connection - everything else is free. He can then start a company, all from his parents' home.
You cannot say the same about pharma. The capital investment needed is much higher, the regulations are much stricter, and blind trial-and-error isn't an option unless you want to put your own life at risk. To put it simply, you're quite literally in the (human) meatspace.
Think of it this way computer research goes back around 100 years, medical research goes back well over 2,000 years. There is simply less low hanging fruit left.
PS: Consider this there is a large but finite number of reasonably stable chemicals with 10 atoms or less. All of them have been considered as to there medical impacts. (There toxicity if nothing else.)