I suspect the “cure” for cancer will be genetic, it’ll be multi-variant, therefore semi-customized for the individual patient, and will involve either repairing individual genes or using genes from another species. There’s a lot of work going on along these lines, and some has reversed genetically inherited diseases. I don’t think “simple or easy” is a realistic possibility.
As far as the meme about drug company profits goes, even the most common substance has to be carefully administered and monitored, the disease has to be accurately diagnosed, and the patient has to be followed up for relapses. All of those activites generate revenue for the medical profession, so the profit of drug companies is not the sole market force involved. They’ll provide whatever substance is required, in much the same way as they’ve continued to provide Claritin since it went off prescription.
Treatment of cancer has advanced a great deal since my introduction to it via a loved one, and later on with a beloved dog. “Alternative” therapies are being researched and tested now, unlike then. There’s a place for both conventional medical science and herbal treatments, as well as dietary supplements.
I distrust genetic manipulation, maybe it’s a poor bias akin to the closed mindedness I encountered trying to help those I loved in any way possible back then, but I do. Some individuals inherit a propensity to develop certain cancers, true, but most of it is just cells gone wrong and not destroyed by the body’s natural defenses in time.
Live long enough, and you’ll develop cancer. It’s almost an inevitability.
For anyone with an interest in the history of cancer research, I highly recommend Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “The Emperor of all Maladies”. It’s available in Kindle for about ten bucks, and in paperback for that or less. It takes you from early history to the current day, and details how far we’ve come and how far is left to go.