Here is a perfect example of how you are misinformed. Thank you for providing it.
Having worked in this area for years, I can tell you that it is very common for the private sector to dump money to public sector research institutes (independent and university affiliated) to do the initial research. I have worked on such projects on many occasions, and we would do the preliminary studies before the private entities took over but only AFTER we were able to show that there was some promise in some protocol we were doing. There are many reasons for this, some of it has to do with the fact that academic research is far better suited to the initial optimization of experiments, there is more collaboration in academia than in the private sector and more public labs have access to restricted substances and/or viruses (biohazard clearance is tightly regulated and not uncommon to have only a handful - or even just one or two - level IV clearance areas in a country and you can bet your ass they're not at a private corporation!).
I have no idea where your "estimation" comes from, but it's dead wrong.