SENS is fundamentally in competition with dozens or hundreds of profit seeking organizations in the world.

Sort of. It might be nice if, say, a cure for diabetes was owned by a non-profit that released it into the public domain rather than by a corporation that would charge for it. (Obviously forcing corporations to be non-profits has predictably terrible side effects, and so the only proper way to do this is by funding participants in the race yourself.) From the perspective of the for-profits, a single non-profit competitor only slightly adjusts their environment, and so may not significantly adjust their incentive structure.

They will get invented no matter what

It would seem that the sooner a treatment is developed / cure found, the less people will suffer or die from the disease. Moving that sooner seems like a valuable activity.