I think there are reasons to by somewhat cynical.

Some of this comes directly from a free-market capitalist system where vaccines, cures and preventative measures, get little funding while treatments, particularly ones which require chronic and life-long use, are well financed. The recent revelation that drug companies spent more money for advertising than research and that the vast majority of basic research done for drugs has been taxpayer funded not financed by the drug companies have done nothing to make the industries look any less like the greedy, conniving and manipulative capitalists they are.

Bottom line is that the business of business is making money. Given their druthers the drug companies would gleefully bottle stump water and sell it to you for a kings ransom if they could get away with it. For them having to produce something that at least marginally aids, or at least not directly harm, clients is a onerous task forced on them by regulations and trial lawyers.

On the other hand while the generalized cause of 'beating cancer' sounds good cancer, in all its myriad forms, doesn't generally cooperate with simple one-size-fits-all treatments.

While the general cause of cancer seems to be mostly some sort of transcription error during multiplication the exact timing, sequence and placement of the error makes different types of cancer impossible to treat with one method. Some can be expected to respond to radiation. Other types to surgery. And a third type to respond best to chemotherapy. Often a mix of all three but sometimes using the wrong treatment can cause more harm than good. Both from simple cellular or anatomical reasons but also because of the human life, what is valued by the person being treated and also their life cycle. You don't generally treat non-aggressive prostate cancer in a 90 year-old patient. Odds are he dies f something else before the cancer gets him.

Even the prevalence of cancer is not without assumptions. More people get it but then again two factors play into this. First we are simply living longer. malnutrition and disease tended to kill a good percentage of people who had or where going to get cancer. A lot of people died of 'natural causes'. Second, we are far better at spotting cancers. Back in the 1900s a cancer often had to be clearly visible to be diagnosed. Now we spot cancers of the blood and bone marrow that have no obvious growths.