I don’t believe so, no, but even if they were - isn’t funding private businesses to do research (that have a stake in success) better than the state doing it directly and not caring if it works or is effective or not?

You'd have to make that case. Even the naive answer would be 'no' but I can't think of a reason why a narrowly focused business is better than a government-backed enterprise when it comes to doing research. It's not worse necessarily, but it's not better either.