Gary I agree with your sentiments about
the $$ spent on treatment rather than prevention/cure. This is the state of our healthcare system and there's unfortunately not a whole lot we can do about
it.
What excites me about
news about
new drugs like these is:
1) at least there are scientists continuously working on something for our condition. Hopefully in the coming years they come out with something that works really well for a large portion of us affected. Just because there hasn't been a lot of progress in the past 10-20 years doesn't mean that we can expect the same rate of progress for the next 10-20 years; we should expect much greater results because scientists are building upon a greater body of knowledge (past research, etc) and have access to better technology everyday (not directly related to UC, but see for example
/twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/589795366557638656)
2) new drugs coming out can at least offer help to some. Every few months on these forums we have someone logging on to report they've gone into full remission after trying ___, ___ or ___; what works for them doesn't work for everyone because everyone's body and condition is a little different. We should expect similar results from new drugs - they won't work for everyone (as pmitra points out) but could for some where it's a good fit for their condition, and it's definitely worth trying. The way I see it, the more things to try the better.