A metric other than profitability seems like a terrible target for private research which (outside of a charity or cause-driven org) needs to justify its expenses.

In the US alone, we have dozens of grants, programs, and funding sources for things like orphan/rare diseases.

> A metric other than profitability ...

* Quality of life improvement for x people?

* x people cured of [SOME DISEASE]?

(etc)

Those seem like pretty good ideas of the kind of targets we should have. But as you mention, those seem to only be considered for cause driven places or charities.

Profitability works because it is/was a good proxy for utility. This breaks as wealth becomes unevenly distributed.