The Orencia infusion works against the auto-immune disease by affecting the tumor necrosis factor (sounds fun huh?). So, technically it may work for 'off label' issues that are being helped by other tumor necrosis factor medications (like Humira). I haven't really looked in to its use for more than RA though.

I agree completely with the sad fact that drug companies are more interested in creating 'suppressive' life-long therapy rather than a cure. But there are many key factors in whether a cure is feasible.

A) Do they want to cure something that will bring in an insane amount of revenue? Usually not
B) Does the current suppressive therapy work 99% of the time to make people feel better and live a somewhat normal/healthy life? Sometimes they do, so they think 'why change it?"
C) Is a cure even possible? There really isn't a 'yes' for this question with regards to a lot of health issues. This answer would depend on whether the health issue is complicated or of unknown cause (as in auto-immune disorders) or if the bacteria/virus/whatever causing it is adaptable in order to resist treatment some day.

Things like Asthma, Diabetes, Arthritis, and HIV all have medications available to help control/suppress/slow their progressions. It's a nice idea to hope that some day there will be a cure for these things, but until then we can, in the least, do our part as consumers in educating ourselves about the medications we're on, educating ourselves on our heath issues, and looking beyond to complementary therapies that may help us feel even better in the long run (like swimming to help arthritis, swimming to strengthen the lungs in asthmatics, better nutrition for diabetics, and infection prevention in HIV - as many issues/deaths result from the body's immune system's incapability to fight off infection).