Chapter 66: The First Product (7)

Chapter 66: The First Product (7)

Luca Taylor was arrested and Schumatix was rapidly deteriorating. Now, their brand value was less than a tenth of what it was during their prime time.

“We apologize. Our board of directors dismissed CEO Luca Taylor.”

The directors of Schumatix stood in front of the reporters and bowed, publicly apologizing. That was broadcast to the entire world, but the people’s anger didn’t seem to subside. It was because the evil acts Schumatix had done in the past were too wicked to say that this was just a deviation from Luca Taylor.

They became an international bastard as the issue about them profiteering on Gleevec came out. Gleevec was a treatment for chronic myelogenous leukemia. It was the first new type of treatment for leukemia, which could only be treated by bone marrow transplantation.

—The price for one capsule of Gleevec was one hundred dollars in the United States. If you take one pill per day, that’s three thousand dollars per month. Can you believe it? But there are patients who have to take three or four pills a day.

A professor from MIT said on CNN.

One hundred dollars was equivalent to one hundred thousand won. Three million won per month was the price of staying alive. It was a little cheaper in Korea, but the prices were still murderous. Patients have to spend money equivalent to the salary of a small company employee every month on medicine. That’s why they did whatever they could, including getting loans, because they would die if they couldn’t pay.

Since Schumatix had the lives of patients in their hands and there was no other drug to compete with, they could just choose whatever price they wanted. The Korean government had proposed to lower the domestic price of one capsule, which was twenty-five thousand won, to around eighteen thousand won, but they failed.

—Is this expensive because it is expensive to produce? No, it isn’t. It doesn’t even cost one dollar to produce a capsule.

The professor said.

—Excluding all the shipping costs and things that occur during the distribution process, the manufacturer, Schumatix, takes more than one hundred times the production cost as profit. What kind of industry is this? For patients, it’s the same thing as monopolizing on air or water and selling a day’s worth for one hundred dollars. It’s the same thing as telling the patients to work hard and give them all the money they earned if they want to stay alive.

—It’s a shocking price. Is it because it took a lot of money to develop it?This chapter made its debut appearance via N0v3lB1n.

—Large pharmaceutical companies usually set drugs at a high price for the purpose of getting development costs, but even if it was for that, Schumatix went too far.

The professor said.

—And Schumatix didn’t even put that much money into developing that drug either. It’s because Imatinib, the raw material for Gleevec, was created in university labs. All Schumatix did was just buy the patent and make it into pills, but they monopolized it and sold it at that price.

—Wow. How could they? Did this not get out in the past?

—It did. But Schumatix kept silencing the issue so that it did not get big. But the issue was brought up again.

—I heard that the replicate drug developed in India was a replica of Gleevec.

—That’s right. And Schumatix sued India or countries who imported that replica for infringement of patent rights.

—How shocking. I heard that A-Bio is working on making bone marrow with stem cells. If that technology becomes commercialized, will we live in a world where we won’t need Gleevec?

—Of course. As a fellow scientist in the field, I am hoping that Doctor Ryu Young-Joon will conquer leukemia one day.

Bleep!

Young-Joon turned off the television.

—They are talking about you everywhere.

Rosaline said to him.

“Well, it was a big fight.”

—The natural destruction of stem cells was something I taught you before, right

“Yeah. I just changed the differentiation target from spinal cells to optic nerves.”

—You can do it on your own now. I didn't know you would apply that technology like this.

“Are you complimenting me?”

Young-Joon chuckled.

—Yes. But I still want to insist on putting all the board members in a coma. Don’t bother going the long way. Even if we put all of them in beds, it would just be a few thousand people. If we sacrifice that number, you can turn the world into a better place in three years without anything getting in the way.

“I told you I can’t do that.

—Alright. To be honest, the method you chose wasn’t bad either. A-Bio has succeeded in gaining the patient’s trust from this incident. It’s worse than eliminating all the competition and dominating the field, but this is also a gain.

“All you think about is gains and losses, isn’t it?”

—Is anything else necessary? The power that advanced humanity was selfish motives. From a genetic perspective, selfless acts are all inherently due to selfish motives.

Rosaline asked.

“Are you talking about the Selfish Gene theory?”

The Selfish Gene theory posited that people’s selfless acts all came from the selfish motive to spread their own genes. For example, a mother running in front of a car to save their child was not acting in selflessness for their child, but they acted that way because that child had half of their DNA. As she would ultimately be preserving and spreading her own genes to the world if she and her child all lived no matter how severe their injuries were, it was a gamble in terms of genetics that was motivated by selfishness.

—It was just a theory to Doctor Dawkins, but it is a definite truth to me. From billions of years ago when the human animal wasn't human yet, all organisms on this Earth have acted with selfish motives.

“Maybe they did.” Young-Joon nodded. “But there is something about humans that can’t be explained by that. People don’t just act with selfish motives, although it’s probably hard for you to understand.”

—How very interesting. Can you teach me?

“I don’t know if you will be able to understand it even if I explain it...”

On the passenger’s seat, there was a picture of them standing with Young-Joon.

Young-Joon was touched.

—Serotonin is being released again.

Rosalien said as if it was fascinating.

Young-Joon ignored her and kept scrolling down. Of course, the most popular video among the vast amount of posts was the press conference video where he quickly responded to Schumatix’s sabotage. There were also a lot of foreigners writing comments as well. From English to Arabic, the comments were filled with languages from a lot of different countries.

—Hyung! Destroy them! Good luck!

There was one comment that had the most likes. When Young-Joon saw it and went into the person’s profile, it was someone he knew.

[Yang Dong-Wook]

—Majoring in Biology at Jungyoon University.

“This is Ji-Won’s friend,” Young-Joon said.

“He’s famous in your fan club. He basically worships you like a religion, but you know this guy?”

“He came to help me when I was helping Ji-Won move out of her dorm room.”

“Go do a lecture at the school or something. He’ll probably cry if you go.

* * *

Young-Joon had some tea with Park Joo-Hyuk in his office. It had been a while. They had been busy for quite a while and jumped over a huge obstacle recently, so they needed time to rest mentally. There was no better way to do that than chat about useless things with an old friend. Park Joo-Hyuk, who was reminiscing about the third grade for about an hour, suddenly brought up an issue.

“Is the U.S. asking for anything?”

“Asking for what?”

“The White House stood on your side and destroyed Schumatix, even using the CIA. They fully showed that they were on Team Ryu, so I imagine there was some kind of favor.”

“I’m going to launch a cancer research lab as an affiliate of A-Bio later, and it’s going to be partnered with the National Cancer Institute.”

“That’s what it was?”

“It was just a verbal conversation I had with the director of the Office of Science and Technology when I went to the United States. He said the U.S. would support us a lot.”

“When are you starting?”

“The sooner the better.”

“Then leave this place to me and go there. The Schumatix incident is wrapping up anyway.”

“It’s not done yet. I have things left to do,” Young-Joon said.

“Like what? Park Joo-Hyuk asked.

“I have to cure Ardip.”

“Who’s that?”

“How can you not know? It’s the Indian patient Schumatix sabotaged.”

Ardip was a pitiful man who was born in a prostitution hole and lived in poverty and hardship. After becoming Schumatix’s target and having his face broadcast to the entire world with a tumor in his eye, he was now the main character in A-Bio’s legendary stem cell story. He was a famous star, but none of it was because he wanted it. The only thing he signed up for was the glaucoma treatment because they said it was free.

“Everyone is focused on that person, but no one cares about his health,” Young-Joon said. “Everyone is just watching whether the thing in Ardip’s eye is a tumor or just cell aggregation. They are watching whether Schumatix or A-Bio wins, as if this was some boxing match.”

“...”

“But Ardip went to Schumatix India to treat his glaucoma. And he hasn’t been treated for that yet.”

“Wow... Amazing. That was bugging you while you were fighting with Schuamtix?”

“Ardip’s treatment is as important to me as punishing Luca Taylor,” Young-Joon said. “Whether Luca Taylor retires, whether it was a safety mechanism or tumor, no matter all those things, Ardip has to be cured. Whatever the process was, he was treated with my technology.”

“So, it’s a problem of pride as the creator of the treatment?”

“Yeah. True medicine is to take responsibility for the patient who you started to treat.”

“You’re going to go to heaven,” Park Joo-Hyuk said. “If you don’t go, the only people in heaven will be Jesus and Buddha.”

Young-Joon frowned. “I’m not being nice or anything. This is the norm and the normal thing to do,” he said. “The people who don’t do this are abandoning their responsibilities. Anyway, I’m going to dispatch a trustworthy scientist to India, where Ardip is right now, or bring him here and treat him at our next-generation hospital.”

“This hasn’t been publicly announced yet, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then can I make a spoiler in your fan club? I think the like count will explode and say that you’re amazing for taking responsibility.”

“No.”