Why do I get the sinking feeling that this will be commercialized "first as tragedy, then as farce"

I have to admit I don't really see the plan here.

Mad geneticist injects 1000 people with a gene.

50 years later, 7500 people have to pay for the fix! The profits!

And that's ignoring the failure rate of the initial shot.

This is a worse return on investment than a maniacal scheme to infect people directly, and then 1:1 charge them for a cure.