Chapter 108: Plant-based Pharmaceuticals (1)

Confusion swept over Principal Scientist Kim Joo-Yeon. It was the same for the other scientists. The department that had the worst performance at Lab One was the Plant-based Pharmaceuticals Research Department. Just like Young-Joon originally thought, this department was created to produce pharmaceuticals from plants. However, their initial goal was not to mass produce pharmaceuticals; it was just an attempt to become free from bacteria and viruses that usually infected animal cells.

“All that department has been doing for the past ten years is making vitamin-rich lettuce... You know that, right?” Hwang Chan-Mi asked.

“Of course,” Young-Joon replied.

They weren’t even purifying vitamins or anything, but just growing lettuce that was bred to contain a lot of vitamins. Honestly, it wasn’t much different from what the Health Food Department was developing. It was an awkward research direction considering that the name of their department was the Plant-based

Pharmaceuticals

Research Department.

“To be honest, the reason they have been doing that for ten years is because our lab has given up on making pharmaceuticals in plant cells,” Kim Joo-Yeon said.

“The Plant team said that during our meeting. I am thinking of restarting the business they gave up on,” Young-Joon replied while calmly nodding.

“But... Director, I’m sorry, but it’s not going to work well. I know this because my colleague who joined the company with me is the head of that department, but they all tried really hard back then. But it doesn’t work. The process of expressing genes in plants is very different from animal cells.”

“I know.”

“The reason that most viruses and bacteria that infect animal cells do not have pathogenicity against plant cells is because their environments are completely different. The pattern of sugar chains attaching to peptides translated from RNA is completely different in plant cells compared to animal cells. Even if you put in the same gene, the results will be different. To analyze that pattern and put in a gene that matches it? That is... That is incredibly difficult. It’s harder than getting an anticancer drug like Cellicure to Phase Three of clinical trials.”

“But we can’t just let antibody drugs or biopharmaceuticals be produced and sold at extremely high prices, right? A lot of money is going into the vaccines that are being used for HIV eradication as well. There is progress being made for that project because the WHO is backing it up and numerous charity organizations are pouring money into it,” Young-Joon said. “I have no intention of being satisfied with just HIV eradication, and along with the extinction of mosquitoes, I am going to eliminate countless infectious diseases from this planet. For this, it is essential to lower the unit price of biopharmaceuticals overall.”

“...”

“I will give you the direction for the basic research, so don't; worry and follow me.”

“Have you discussed this with the Plant team?” Kim Joo-Yeon asked.

“Of course. They are burning with passion right now.”

“...”

Kim Joo-Yeon was at a loss for words. This was the democratization of drugs. There were actually a lot of expensive pharmaceuticals that cost hundreds of millions of won until complete recovery, but they just didn’t receive a lot of attention because the number of patients was so small. With Young-Joon, these highly expensive drugs may all become as cheap as vitamin supplements.

‘Wait. Can vitamins be produced this way as well? Then, the supplements on the market right now will...’

A chill ran down Kim Joo-Yeon’s neck.

“We might be shooting ourselves in the foot with this,” Kim Joo-Yeon said. “Director, if we succeed in what you said, there will be a revolutionary change in the price of pharmaceuticals. There will be pharmaceutical companies that go out of business if the prices drop that low. We don’t know the changes that happen to A-Gen’s financial structure. There may no longer be a merit to the pharmaceutical industry itself, and...”

Kim Joo-Yeon stopped talking mid-way. It was because Young-Joon was staring at her.

“Um... I would like to reduce the prices, but I just wanted to tell you that I am worried that management will not like it.”

“From now on, we will call this the plant-based pharmaceutical production method. In five years from now, the trend in pharmaceutical companies will change to this,” Young-Joon said. “And as you said, it will become a huge variable in the management budget of many pharmaceutical companies. There will be companies among them that will go bankrupt.”

“...”

“We can’t do anything about those that cannot adapt and collapse. For people who lose their jobs, we can hire them if they are talented and someone we need. But we can’t not develop cars because we are worried about coachmen, right?” Kim Joo-Yeon nodded in confusion. Conversely speaking, they were developing cars in a time when people rode carriages. What she meant was that it would be too difficult.

‘Maybe it’s not a big deal to Ryu Young-Joon?’

Kim Joo-Yeon could not guess how confident Young-Joon was in starting this project as he was a person who had done incredible research like it was nothing.

* * *

In the pediatric ward at Sunyoo Hospital, a group of children were joking around and playing. A ten-year-old boy put on a white mask that he got from somewhere and pretended to be a doctor.

“Where are you feeling pain?” A girl who looked to be about eight-years-old lied down on the bed and touched her stomach.

“My tummy hurts.”

“Let’s take a look.”

The boy put the wire of his earbuds on his friend’s stomach instead of a stethoscope.

“Hup! This is a stomachache!”

“What’s a stomachache?” the girl asked with wide eyes.

“A stomachache is a very scary disease. You need to get a needle this big.”

“Stupid, a stomachache means that your belly hurts. She came because her belly hurts, but how can you say that she has a stomachache?”

A nine-year-old girl who was beside them interrupted. She was one of the legendary patients of Sunyoo Hospital. She was the child who had survived an extreme situation where cancer cells spread to her pelvis during her end-stage liver cancer. To put it strongly, she had crossed the River of Styx halfway and returned. And now, she had recovered enough to join the relatively healthy group of kids and play with them.

“No, Yoon-Ah. I diagnosed her with a stomach ache because her belly hurts. That’s what my doctor said, too. He said I have a stomachache,” said the boy.

“He was talking about your symptoms. A symptom and a disease are different things.”

Lee Yoon-Ah flinched. She would have been hurt by that statement in the past, but she was not that surprised now. All she felt now was a little bit sorry and disappointed.

“I’m getting discharged tomorrow,” Lee Yoon-Ah said.

“You’re getting discharged?”

“Discharged?”

Surprised, all the children gathered around her.

“You’re all better now?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you’re going home?”

“Yeah...”

“It’s fun when Yoon-Ah is here. She’s going because you said that your tummy hurting is a stomachache, Ho-Taek-oppa.”

The girl who pretended to be the patient got up and scolded the boy.

“Don’t go home, Yoon-Ah. Play with us, okay? I’ll be good,” the boy said in disappointment.

The adults who were watching them smiled slightly.

“He said that he’ll be good. My husband always says that, too.”

The women chatted playfully.

“I’ll visit often,” Lee Yoon-Ah said.

Creak.

The door to the patient room opened. A nurse and Kim Hyo-Jin appeared and looked for her.

“Come here, Yoon-Ah.”

This was her last examination before being discharged. Kim Hyo-Jin was overwhelmed to the point where she felt emotional. She took Lee Yoon-Ah’s hand and went to the examination room. There were two scientists sitting beside Kim Chun-Jung, their doctor. It was Young-Joon and Song Ji-Hyun. They were reading the data that checked how much Cellicure and the chimeric immunotherapy was discharged from the body and the presence of any side effects.

“There aren’t any problems so far,” Song Ji-Hyun said.

“There is a lot of clinical data that Conson & Colson had about chimeric immunotherapy. It hasn’t been tested on a lot of children, but since all the values are consistent with clinical data, it shouldn’t cause any side effects if everything has been okay so far,” Young-Joon said to Kim Chun-Jung.

To be honest, that data was additional, and Young-Joon actually examined Lee Yoon-Ah in Synchronization Mode. Being extra cautious, Rosaline came out herself and observed her condition up close.

—She is cured. There aren’t any cancer cells left. None.

Rosaline said as she patted Lee Yoon-Ah’s shoulder. Lee Yoon-Ah didn’t feel anything, but Young-Joon was relieved.

“There isn’t a lot of clinical data on Cellicure, but the results are generally consistent with Phase One data of the old version,” Song Ji-Hyun said.

Kim Chun-Jung thoroughly examined the data sheet, then talked to Lee Yoon-Ah.

“Do you feel any discomfort anywhere?”

“No.”

“And it doesn’t hurt?”

“No.”

𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

“...”

Kim Chun-Jung smiled.

“Mrs. Kim.”

“Yes!” Kim Hyo-Jin replied right away.

“We don’t know what kind of aftereffects she will have because Yoon-Ah resected a lot of her liver. If possible, try not to eat anything heavily seasoned, and if you ever need to go to the hospital, make sure to let them know that her liver has been resected when they use medicine.”

“Yes, I will make sure to do that.”

“And because she’s still developing, we don’t know how her liver will recover. It will be best for her to come in regularly and be examined for the next five years.”

“Of course...”

“Anyways, I’m very glad that Yoon-Ah has become much better. You’ve worked so hard. You can leave tomorrow morning. And I want to especially thank Doctor Ryu and Doctor Song,” said Kim Chun-Jung as she gestured to them.

Kim Hyo-Jin quickly bowed.

“Thank you so much. All three of you have saved my daughter’s life. Thank you so much. Especially Doctor Ryu... Chimeric immunotherapy is really expensive, but you gave it to us free of charge... How can I thank you...”

“I can’t take money since it’s a clinical trial. We should actually be the ones paying you,” Young-Joon said.

To be honest, Lee Yoon-Ah was a reason why he was determined to develop the plant-based pharmaceuticals production method. He was interested in research related to this from before, but it was less important compared to other things; he thought that developing drugs for incurable diseases was first. However, the emails he received after successfully treating Lee Yoon-Ah showed him the reality.

[Hello, I am a father in my forties living in Chungcheongnam-do. My son has pediatric cancer that has metastasized to the bone, but I heard that you have succeeded in curing this with the chimeric immunotherapy. I am asking if we could receive the treatment. I heard that not anyone can get the treatment as it is still in clinical trials, and that it is very expensive, but...]

Young-Joon received hundreds of emails like this, and they weren’t just from Korea; he got countless emails regarding this from overseas as well. However, he could tell that everyone struggled with the financial situation as he was classifying the emails. This situation was actually ironic as the clinical trial was completely free. The patients and their families weren’t talking about money because they didn’t know that.

When Young-Joon read their logic, it was usually in this order:

1. Not everyone can get into the clinical trial.

2. This treatment was extremely expensive.

3. Then, won’t they include us in the clinical trial if we pay money?

However, the chimeric immunotherapy was an ultra-expensive treatment that cost over four hundred million won for one round of the treatment. How could regular people pay that? As such, there were usually two kinds of people. The first were people who were financially well-off. The best of them was an oil king from the Middle East, and they wrote Young-Joon an email.

[To Doctor Ryu. I am Aziz, and I live in Saudi Arabia. I have seven sons, and my first son is very sick from pediatric cancer. He received treatment in America, but he was declared terminally ill. We thought about receiving chimeric immunotherapy through Conson & Colson, but they didn’t do it because they thought the success rate would be very low and if it failed, it could be a problem when getting approval from the FDA. However, I know that the child you successfully treated with this treatment was in worse condition. I can donate over thirty billion won to A-Bio, and if you would like to expand your business to Saudi Arabia...]

And as expected, the other type of people were regular folks who didn’t have a lot of money. Unexpectedly, there weren’t a lot of people who appealed to human compassion. They actually told him not to worry about the cost of treatment, saying that they would steal, or sell their house or organs for it. They were scared that they would lose their opportunity to be treated if they acted timidly.

‘The problem isn’t other pharmaceutical companies going out of business when this is the situation...’

Young-Joon thought about what Kim Joo-Yeon said again. To be honest, other pharmaceutical companies weren’t really where problems could occur in this ambitious business.

* * *

“We have to prepare to fight insurance companies,” Young-Joon said. Park Joo-Hyuk squinted.

“With who?”

“Insurance companies.”

“Woah... Now that you’ve killed all your competitors in the STEM,[1] you’re going to take over business and economics?”

“Do you think I’m a gangster or something?”

“But why are you fighting insurance companies?”

“I’m in charge of Lab One now, right?”

“Yeah.”

There are two big projects that I can start from here,” Young-Joon said. “One is the revolution in drug prices. The other is the Genome Project through the Diagnostic Device Department.”

Park Joo-Hyuk had heard a general explanation about the way he was going to lower the price of pharmaceuticals. He had also heard about the Genome Project, but he didn’t understand them completely.

“But what does that have to do with insurance companies? Because the prices of drugs will fall?”

“Do you know that Angelina Jolie had surgery to resect her completely normal breasts?” “Really? She cut them off even though they were fine?”

“Yes. The probability of breast cancer was high according to her DNA test.”

“Just because of that...”

“It’s not just because of that. She predicted it and dealt with it before the tumor formed. It’s one of the most common things we’ll see in future medicine. But it would have started in the West.”

“...”

“If we conduct the Genome Project on all races and build a dense DNA database, that future will start in Korea.”

“Oh, I get it. It’s because insurance is a business where you bet on the uncertainty? If we can predict diseases, insurance has no place to stand?”

Young-Joon nodded.

“It will take time to predict it precisely, but in addition to that, we have powerful, rapid, and cheap diagnostic kits, treatments that are the price of vegetables, and a next-generation hospital armed with a future technology called regenerative medicine.”

“Woah...”

The big picture was already completed: they would predict the disease, quickly diagnose it with a cheap diagnostic kit, rapidly cure and discharge the patient by using the next-generation hospital system, which is based on cheap pharmaceuticals and regenerative medicine. What point could insurance companies target if the uncertainty of disease development significantly decreased, treatments became so cheap that even poor people could buy it, and patients could quickly recover and return to their everyday lives?

It was obvious that this major structural reform that was going to happen in medicine was going to cause huge changes in the insurance market.

“We have to begin preparing for that future,” Young-Joon said.

1. acronym that stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics ?