Debi
I agree with all that you say. Industry has all the responsibility vested in it to supply treatments. The risks are high, funding is scarce and there are no cast iron outcome measures or biomarkers to mitigate the problem.
Your investment in these companies adds credibility to whatever science they are trying to turn into treatments allowing them to secure funding from other sources. This is seed funding and it works.
BUT I wonder whether this goes far enough? Couldn't we do more? There are some potentially disease modifying treatments out there and it strikes me that we need to be arguing for "the State" to get involved as well. The economic burden of Parkinson's is set to rise dramatically in the next few years. I think we should be researching this to show politicians and healthcare authorities that actually a relatively small investment now could reap huge dividends for the future.
OK so may be they won't play ball with this idea. But at the very least we should be encouraging a culture of teamwork rather than leave it all to Big Pharma. If there was some way of bringing the three principal stakeholders (patients, industry and government) together so that their required outputs were all met (better health, profits and value/votes) then risk COULD be mitigated perhaps.
There has to be a better way of working than the current system. What do you think? It should not be impossible to satisfy all stakeholder outputs satisfactorily. TEAMWORK has to be the way forward. It makes sense for everyone.
Not sure if I have explained all that adequately , but gotta go. Will revisit.