Chapter 12
I was picking out a suit with Lieselotte before we went to meet the pharmaceutical company.
She said she'd buy me one.
“The first step to building rapport and trust with someone is showing them that you share their culture and context.”
“Yes.”
“In a pharmaceutical company's boardroom, that context is cocaine and Armani suits. But I assume you have no intention of doing cocaine.”
“No… I don't.”
She wasn't wrong.
Cocaine isn't very good for your health. I heard some people use it for dieting now and then because it makes you lose weight.
I stood before the mirror in the suit Lieselotte had picked out for me. She wore a faint smile, like a child playing with dolls.
“It looks good, doesn't it?”
“Does it?”
“You look smart.”
I chuckled inwardly. Lieselotte had her arms crossed as she looked me over.
A navy suit and a black tie.
From a distance, it looked like an ordinary suit, but up close, the texture was different.
An Armani suit. Including accessories like the tie, it cost $1,000 in 1970s money.
Converted to modern values, that was nearly ten million won.
Expensive clothes really did have a different look to them.
It felt like a bit of a waste, but it wasn't as if I could ask her to give me the cash instead.
I fiddled with my tie and said,
“Thank you.”
“A thousand dollars isn't that much… Think of it as an investment. There are doors that won't open unless you're wearing a suit with an absurd price tag.”
I nodded.
Ten million won was certainly a lot of money, but I didn't bother arguing with Lieselotte.
“Yes… I suppose.”
She was offering to buy it, after all.
To people like them, it must be pocket change.
Bill Gates supposedly says it's more profitable to work than to stop and pick up a $1,000 bill from the street. The Weisman family was probably the same sort.
The richest people in America.
“I'd like to grab coffee with you, but we should take care of what we came to do first…”
Lieselotte and her attendant headed for the parking lot.
I hurried after them.
Syntex.
One of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in California in the 1970s, and our destination today.
It had amassed a fortune developing and manufacturing steroid drugs, and even held monopolies on some products. It was also the company the Weisman Foundation had connected us with for selling the EpiPen.
I got into the car the Foundation had arranged with Lieselotte. A Lincoln Continental, with a back seat outfitted like a sofa.
It was a huge luxury sedan, almost like a limousine. Lieselotte sank deep into the seat, then looked at me seriously.
“But it won't be easy.”
“What won't?”
“Expecting the company to cooperate through some workaround just because you have a patent and backing. They don't compromise when it comes to money.”
“I suppose not.”
“Neither the Weisman name nor even I can guarantee Syntex's cooperation. That's up to the merits of the product itself…?”
I'd heard that before.
No matter how much influence they had, a pharmaceutical company wasn't going to hand over its lifeblood—manufacturing facilities or funding—easily.
“I'm confident.”
My answer was unequivocal.
In the original timeline, the EpiPen had been a successful product that saved countless lives.
As long as I did my part, it would work. Right?
The patent had been registered without a hitch, too.
“I thought you might be. I heard you'd published research in prestigious journals back when you were an undergraduate. My father was intrigued.”
“Do you know what the paper was about?”
The young lady from the prestigious family tilted her head with interest.
“Hmm, I heard it was about molecular biology. I haven't read it in detail, but apparently it was very successful.”
She'd hit the mark.
The papers I'd written or contributed to as an undergraduate had staked out strategic ground.
I'd chosen topics that molecular biologists of this era couldn't afford to ignore, ensuring they'd have to read my paper coauthored with Professor Berg.
That was also why Nature's review process had been unusually fast.
“That's right.”
Lieselotte chatted on for a while.
She asked me to explain my research, what it meant, and why there was a zombie in the restaurant. She said she was glad I liked the suit and had picked it out especially because she thought Armani would suit me.
***
And so.
We arrived. Syntex employees escorted us deep into the company building.
The door to the pharmaceutical company's boardroom opened.
I entered the conference room with my presentation materials in hand. Several Syntex employees were seated there.
They weren't the only ones there.
That man was Syntex's CEO.
Albert Bowers.
An organic chemist who had researched steroid synthesis. He would later invent a famous painkiller. I greeted him politely.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Bowers.”
When I offered my hand, he shook it and regarded me with a serious expression.
His eyes were like a shark eyeing its prey, as if waiting for me to make a mistake.
“As you may have heard, I've come to propose an investment and partnership with your company based on a patent I've recently obtained.”
Lieselotte watched us from behind.
“You're the one, right? That Asian genius doctor who was in the Palo Alto News.”
Surely my research record mattered more than my race.
“Three papers in Nature and one in The Lancet.”
“That's impressive. I made time because the Weismans asked, but drugs aren't driven by brilliant ideas or medical need alone. There's such a thing as industrial reality.”
“Don't worry. It's simple.”
I set the EpiPen down in front of Dr. Bowers. He picked it up and examined it.
“What is this?”
“It's an invention that makes it easy to treat acute anaphylaxis outside a hospital. It uses commercially available epinephrine.”
Dr. Bowers furrowed his brow.
“I'm not a doctor.”
“Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening allergic reaction. Epinephrine is the drug that brings it under control.”
“I know that.”
“My invention lets people use epinephrine injections—which were previously only used in hospitals—immediately outside the hospital as well.”
“How?”
“It's a pen-shaped delivery device. You press it against your thigh and push the back. Even an ordinary person can give themselves an injection in an emergency.”
“So that's why it's shaped like a pen…”
“That's right.”
“Is it profitable?”
That was the question I'd been waiting for.
From here on, it was a matter of marketing.
“There are two advantages. First, this isn't something sick people buy. Ordinary people—say, allergy sufferers or their parents—keep it on hand just in case.”
“Clever.”
“It doesn't have to rely on prescriptions. A revenue stream independent of doctors' whims.”
Not that I should be saying that.
The EpiPen is like insurance: you buy it before an attack, not after. Any parent would gladly buy something that could prevent a fatal accident for their child.
“Second, restaurants these days are afraid of allergy lawsuits. Keeping EpiPens in restaurants would reduce the risk of a fatality.”
Dr. Bowers was impressed by that point.
“Oh, that's a good point…”
“We could even go further and lobby to make EpiPens mandatory in public places and restaurants, couldn't we?”
In America, it was possible.
At the mention of making it mandatory, the employees in the conference room began to stir. The money corporations loved most was easy money.
“Look at it this way. By putting it in an EpiPen, a five-dollar vial of epinephrine becomes a thirty-dollar life insurance policy. It's a model for generating maximum added value from limited production capacity.”
Syntex's CEO fell silent in thought.
“Then how many people in the U.S. have these high-risk allergies?”
“Tens of thousands, at least.”
I could almost hear the gears turning in Dr. Bowers's head.
Tens of thousands of potential customers, and if they could even make it mandatory to keep one around here and there…
“What are the terms for transferring the patent?”
“A $100,000 upfront payment and a one-percent royalty. In exchange, I hope you'll launch it at a price the public can afford.”
A hundred thousand dollars was a substantial sum by the standards of the time, but Dr. Bowers scratched his head and gave a positive sign.
“We'll give your proposal serious consideration. Let's have the lawyers draw up the contract soon.”
I nodded.
The company seemed completely convinced already. In the back, employees were already buzzing as they worked out a lobbying strategy.
“Thank you.”
I bowed my head slightly. Lieselotte looked at me with a puzzled expression.
***
Had he really pulled it off?
Lieselotte was quietly impressed.
She'd known he was talented, but she hadn't expected this much.
He'd walked in with nothing but a sheet of paper, persuaded the difficult Syntex, and secured a contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Was that even possible?
‘Amazing.’
Even the Weisman family hadn't expected things to go this smoothly.
Though the Weismans had carefully nurtured him, he was far exceeding their expectations.