Chapter 70: The Conqueror of AIDS (4)
On Sunday at two o’clock in the afternoon, Park Joo-Hyuk was going into the A-Bio building. He had left something there on Friday. As he was walking past the office, he saw that the lights in the CEO’s office were on.
“On a Sunday?”
When he knocked on the door, Park Joo-Hyuk heard a dying voice.
—Come in.
“Hey what? Why are you here?” Park Joo-Huk asked as he walked into the office.
“I had a lot of work to do,” Young-Joon replied feebly and collapsed on the couch.
Park Joo-Hyuk, who was walking toward him, stopped in his tracks.
“Hey, that sweater you’re wearing. Weren’t you wearing that on Friday?”
“That’s because I haven’t gone home since then.”
“You lunatic. Why aren’t you going home when you have a nice apartment? You look sick! Go home man. What the hell are you doing?”
“...”
“What is all this? Why do you have stacks of papers?”
Park Joo-Hyuk picked up the papers that were on the table and couch.
“Treatment 1, Treatment 2, Treatment 3, Vaccine 1, Vaccine 2… What is all this?”
“I don’t have the energy to explain all of that. I just worked on about a hundred chemical molecules. I was seeing how they match with the ones that have already been developed and strategizing on what would be a good way to use it…”
Park Joo-Hyuk gathered up the papers and stacked them on the table. He dragged Young-Joon out.
“Get up. Just go home. Something’s going to happen to you if you keep working like this. You always stay late during the weekdays, so you need to get some rest during the weekend at least.”
Young-Joon waved his hand like he was tired of hearing it.
“Ugh. Just let me be. And stop nagging me. My head hurts from listening to someone nagging me a hundred times to take care of my body.”
“Who’s nagging you?”
“Someone. A noisy one…”
Young-Joon glanced at the dozens of messages floating on top of his head. They were messages that read, “Warning. Warning. Warning.”
“I’ll go home in two hours,” Young-Joon said to Park Joo-Hyuk.
“Why two hours?”
“That’s when I have to draw blood from the chimpanzee.”
“...”
“I’m checking in four hour intervals to see if the virus is there. After I’m done with this, I should be less busy from Monday.”
“You’re probably the only person who draws chimpanzee blood on the weekend as a CEO.”
“I… guess so.”
“So all you have to do is draw blood from the chimpanzee?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll do it for you. Go home.”
“What are you talking about? How can you do it?”
“You have to teach me. It seems pretty easy. You just have to stab the needle in, draw it out, and that’s it, right?”
“Like how you just need to memorize the law and take the test to be licensed as a lawyer?”
“...”
Park Joo-Hyuk scratched his head.
“Anyway, you need some rest. You’re ugly as is, but your face looks even worse now that you’re so tired.”
“If you’re just going to talk nonsense, just go.”
“Just tell people below you to do it. Don’t spend the night alone and go overboard.”
“Everyone from the bone marrow regeneration team came today as well. They are in an emergency as well.”
“Wait, that team is the reason you stay up all night and come to the office on the weekends? That team is always here late, too. What on earth are you doing there that everyone has tunnel vision?”
Massaging the back of his neck, Young-Joon sat back up.
“We’re doing something monumental for human history.”
“What is it?”
“We are going to eradicate the human immunodeficiency virus and get rid of AIDS forever.”
Park Joo-Hyuk kind of froze.
“Is that possible?”
“Well, obviously not quickly. It will be a very big, long-term global project. We are going to need a huge amount of vaccines and treatments. It’s a lot of work just to produce it, and… No matter how much international cooperation I get, it’s going to take a few years to completely eradicate HIV.”
“I think the fact that this is a matter of time is a revolution itself. You’re permanently eradicating an infectious disease that was incurable. Does it matter that it’s going to take a few years?”
“But to be honest, it’s going to be really hard. And there might be a lot of resistance as well.”
“You’re eradicating HIV. What kind of lunatic would resist?”
“A lot of people. For example, pharmaceutical companies that used to sell AIDS-related drugs, religious organizations that rejected bone marrow transplants, or conservatives that worry that people’s sexual activity will become promiscuous once the drug gets released.”
“Hm…”
“But this is something that is doable even with that risk, and it is something that should be done.”
“Because you’re destroying an infectious disease.”
“Right. Even if there are ten defenders standing in front of the goal post, I will take the shot if they are going to give me one hundred points for just one goal.”
Young-Joon picked up the documents.
“And we can do it. We’re going to tackle it head on with science, just like we’ve been doing before, and eventually eradicate HIV.”
“...”
“Anyway, do you have time on Thursday next week?” Young-Joon asked Park Joo-Hyuk.
“Why?”
“The Secretary General of the World Health Organization is coming. Let’s go together.”
Park Joo-Hyuk’s jaw dropped.
“Because of the HIV eradication project? You’re big enough to be able to tell someone like that to come and go?”
“Of course not, dude. I just told him that we should meet since he’s visiting Korea.”
“Where are you meeting him?”
“The Conrad.”
“Okay. I’ll clear my schedule.”
Knock knock.
Someone else knocked on Young-Joon’s office door.
“Come in,” Young-Joon said.
Doctor Lee Jung-Hyuk opened the door and came in. He looked even worse than Young-Joon, and his dark circles came all the way down to his chin.
‘Wow. He looks brutal.’
Inside, he felt sorry for him, but was also a little touched.”
“Oh, Attorney Park, you were here too. Hello.” Lee Jung-Hyuk said hello.
“Hello.”
“Should I come a little later if you are discussing something with Doctor Ryu?”
“No, it’s fine. I’ve discussed everything that I need to. Please come in.”
Park Joo-Hyuk turned to glance at Young-Joon.
“I’ll be on my way.”
Then, he mouthed to Young-Joon as he was closing the door on his way out.
‘Go home.’
Young-Joon secretly gave him an OK sign.
* * *
On Monday, Young-Joon ran the PCR machine to determine whether the DNA of HIV existed in the chimpanzee’s blood.
[3 hours 40 minutes]
The machine showed how much time was left. After checking that, Young-Joon went to the conference room. He had returned to being a frontline scientist and was doing experiments himself, but he was still in a position where he had to oversee the progress of all the research being done.
The next meeting was a collaborative meeting with Celligener, the company that was developing Amuc, a treatment for diabetes.
“It’s been a while, Doctor Song.” Young-Joon greeted her as he walked in.
“Hello,” Song Ji-Hyun said. For some reason, her voice seemed a bit gloomy.
“You weren’t in our meetings for a while right? I heard you were on a business trip overseas.”
“Yes. I was in India.”
“India?”
Young-Joon was surprised as he was fighting Schuamtix in India regarding Ardip just last week.
“Where in India?”
“Navi Mumbai.”
“Cough!”
Choi Myung-Joon, who was beside her, choked and coughed.
Navi Mumbai was where Schumatix India was located.
“You were in an internationally famous place,” Young-Joon said.
“Yes… I was,” Song Ji-Hyun replied.
“Why did you go to India?”
“For an investment. Thanks to you and the IUBMB, we were able to connect with a millionaire in India and a few pharmaceutical companies. So I went with our CEO for business meetings regarding investments.”
“I see. When did you get back?” Young-Joon asked.
“I got back last evening.”
“Then, you went to work right away and came all the way to this meeting?”
“Yes.”
“Hahaha. We’re staying up nights and coming to work on the weekends, but I see that it’s also pretty bad for you too. No wonder you seem to have no energy today,” Young-Joon said.
Song Ji-Hyun smiled. There was actually a different reason why she seemed so down.
When she was in Navi Mumbai, she had caught on early to Schumatix India’s suspicious behavior. It was before Ardip’s glaucoma treatment incident blew up. She wanted to collect more specific data and give it to Young-Joon as she had received so much help from him. She tried to get some useful information by going to Schumatix India and meeting doctors and patients, but it didn’t go well.
Then, the situation started to rapidly unfold in a violent way. Schumatix attacked Young-Joon by reporting a tumor, which Young-Joon destroyed straight on with a shocking new technology, and the CIA moved as the White House gave an announcement.
What could Song Ji-Hyun, a scientist at a venture pharmaceutical company, do in a large-scale incident like this? In Navi Mumbai, the center stage, she felt extremely helpless. She wanted to repay what he had done for her, but she couldn’t do anything. She felt like nothing. She was happy that A-Bio got through this crisis, but she couldn’t help but feel a little sad.
“Doctor Song?”
Snapping back into it, Song Ji-Hyun quickly raised her head.
“Oh, sorry. What did you say?”
“It’s not about our meeting right now, but if you met a lot of pharmaceutical companies in India, did you ever contact a company that works on an AIDS treatment?” Young-Joon asked.
“An AIDS treatment? There was, but why?”
“Would you be able to introduce me to them?”
* * *
The HIV eradication project was going in three methods. First, a bone marrow transplant to cure AIDS patients one by one. Second, a life-sustaining treatment to stop the progression of AIDS in the patient. Lastly, a vaccination that stopped HIV from spreading to other people.
The first and last method required the development of a new drug, but the drugs that would be used in the second method were already developed. But like what happened with Gleevec, there was a lot of profiteering. The treatment for AIDS that cost about a million won in Korea cost about fifty thousand won to make. As such, poor countries like Africa couldn’t use the treatment and died.
Then did India pharmaceutical companies that fought like hell with Schumatix from cloning Gleevec leave that expensive AIDS treatment alone? They obviously replicated the treatment and mass produced it. Thanks to that, ninety percent of the AIDS treatments used in developing countries were from India. As developing countries had most of the world’s AIDS patients, almost fifty percent of the AIDS treatments in the world was being supplied by India. Their nickname of being the World’s Pharmacy didn’t really seem like an exaggeration.
But there were still people in poor countries who died because they could not use the treatment. Even those drugs, which were drastically cheaper from evading patent rights, were still too expensive.
Then what could be done? They could lower the price of the treatment. Rosaline was also capable of finding ways to create drugs. If Young-Joon designed a good strategy based on that, it could completely change the production process and dramatically lower the cost of production. From what Young-Joon calculated by staying up all night, he found that it could be reduced to less than one-thousandth of the previous cost.
The only thing left to do was to find a company to produce this drug. Of course, it would be best to find it in India as they have already been mass-producing and supplying it. Young-Joon could complete the entire process, from manufacturing to distribution, by finding a few good pharmaceutical companies and forming a technology alliance with them.
But the best part about this, better than the others, was that this didn’t require a clinical trial because it wasn’t a new drug; it was just changing the production process of an existing drug. Young-Joon would be able to commercialize it just with a bioequivalence test.
“There’s a company called Karamchand Pharmatics,” Song Ji-Hyun told Young-Joon. “They are one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in India, and they mass-produce the treatment for AIDS. They probably make about seventy percent of the treatment that goes to Africa.”
“Oh, really?”
Young-Joon stood up in excitement.
“Could you give me their contact information?”
* * *
After the meeting ended, Young-Joon came back to his office and did a little research on Karamchand Pharmatics. The company certainly wasn’t bad.
[Plan for the Eradication of HIV Project]
Young-Joon sent Karamchand Pharmatics an email similar to what he sent Director-General Tedros. They didn’t have to participate in the meeting at the Conrad, but Karamchand Pharmatics made a tight schedule after hearing that there was a chance to meet Tedros.
On Wednesday morning, the day before the meeting, Karamchand Pharmatics sent a few people to Seoul. It was Sachet, the CTO, and three key scientists.
And at ten o'clock the next morning, they arrived at the conference room at the Conrad. When Sachet and the scientists went inside, there were already about ten people inside. A slightly thin young man greeted Sachet and his group.
“Hello. My name is Ryu Young-Joon.”
“Sachet. It is an honor to meet you.”
The two of them shook hands.
A large man with a large belly approached Sachet.
“Hello. I’m Tedros, the Director-General of the WHO.”
After briefly introducing themselves, Young-Joon turned on the monitor.
“I only briefly mentioned this in the email I sent you that I want to discuss the HIV eradication project. I will begin the actual presentation now.”
Sachet nodded as the translator delivered Young-Joon’s message. Tedros took a sip of water. The achievements that Young-Joon had shown thus far had been so great, and the reason they had come all the way here was because of the paper on CCR5 manipulation technology and hematopoietic cell regeneration that was recently published in Science. But this was the first time they were hearing in detail about the strategies and technologies he had.
“We developed a technology that cures AIDS through bone marrow transplantation. We want to cure all AIDS patients with this,” Young-Joon said.
“But it will not be able to follow the speed of the infection,” Tedros pointed out.
“I know. That is why we are going to stop the spread by making a vaccine.”
“Vaccine?”
The scientists in the room all froze. This was a shock.
‘A vaccine? Was AIDS a disease that they could make a vaccine for?’
But even before the shock from his sensational proposition could wear off, Young-Joon played his next card.
“And I would like to use the drugs produced at Karamchand Pharmatics to stop the progression of the disease in already-infected patients. But the output is highly insufficient for the number of patients. Karampia, the AIDS treatment that is being produced right now, takes about a month to make. Through a process that consists of thirteen steps,” Young-Joon said. “I will show you a method to produce that in thirty-six hours with two steps. The reagents required for production are also drastically reduced, so the production cost will be less than 0.1 percent of the present cost.”
“What?!” Sachet screamed in shock. “0.1 percent? How is that possible?”
“Originally, you were chemically synthesizing a thirty-seven-unit complex by connecting them one by one, right? You can use the polymerization system in yeast cells to do that at once. I will show you how to do it in detail.”
“...”
“If both of you could help me, we can completely eradicate HIV from this Earth. Please join me,” Young-Joon said.
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