Should biomedical engineering/ biotech academics aim to start businesses? in my relatively short academic career, I've gathered that academic engineering seems to be more about creating ideas than actually iteratively improving a product using engineering methods. In my field, biomedical engineering, I worry that this is not enough because many biomedical ideas require immense funding that usually comes from large companies willing to wait a decade for profits, and thus good ideas are shelved (obviously many layers to this). 

Many questions address how academics could make money, or start up companies, but my question is whether it is actually our responsibility to do so in the biomedical and biotech fields?

edit:
my assumption is that starting a business is the only way to get a product to customers. Answers that provide alternative strategies to achieve this ultimate goal are welcome :)
The NIH seems to take the opposite view of you. The NIH provides funding for the training of a large number of biomedical engineers. The individual NRSA mechanism (F31 and F32) provides some of the most prestigious funding for PhD students and post docs. This funding comes with a pay back obligation such if you leave academia for industry within a few years of receiving NRSA funding, you can be required to pay back the funding. The NIH is in essence saying "do not leave academia" to the best biomedical engineers it trains. If the NIH thought more people should be starting up companies, I believe it would drastically increase the funding to the SBIR mechanism and rework the pay back mechanism to encourage individuals to leave instead of stay.