Part 3 (1/2)
”They're not paid to be comfortable with it,” Shane ventured. Why not throw his real feelings out there, he figured?
Dennis studied him, eyes sparkling. ”We don't do that here, you know.”
Shane sat down. ”That's what I wanted to talk with you about. I've been in pharma sales my whole career. And maybe it's me getting older, but I feel like it's moved somewhere I don't really want to be.”
”Where is it you're looking to be, Shane?”
”I want to rep drugs that help people survive disease, not de-stress before the golf course. I'd like to go to work for a boutique. Do you think my experience is transferable? Is there a path from Big Pharma sales to start-ups?”
Dennis thought for a moment. ”Well, the cliche says a good salesman can sell cars one day and raincoats the next. But I don't believe that. I think you need to have pa.s.sion for what you sell, feel and understand it as if you made it. We've hired quite a few pharma people. My feeling is they tend to think of our drugs as products. That's the way they were trained. But I don't think of them that way, I think of them as medicine. As lives.”
Shane was nodding.
”So my question back to you Shane would be, your skills are transferable, but is your pa.s.sion?”
”I already have pa.s.sion for what your guys do.”
”What do you know about biotech? I'd imagine being married to one of our best product managers, it's quite a lot.”
”Not as much as I should. If I get a chance to interview somewhere, I'll tighten up.”
”Give it a shot.” Dennis's eyes sparkled.
”Okay. Well, the big idea of biomedicine, as I understand it anyway, is that all living things, plants, animals, fish, viruses, bacteria, insects, are all made of the same genes. And that these genes are interchangeable. Like Lego pieces. They will work the same way in any organism they are transferred to. So we can move a gene with a specific property from one organism to another.”
Dennis was nodding encouragingly.
”For example, a major problem in cancer surgery is that surgeons leave microscopic particles of a tumor behind, which grow back. You guys took the enzyme from a firefly gene that causes its tail to glow and grafted it onto a chromosome in a human cancerous tumor. So that in surgery, every molecule of that tumor glows like a firefly.”
”Two-hundred-million-dollar a year product, by the way.”
”Congratulations. Orco made that much with a female v.i.a.g.r.a that was ineffective.”
Dennis smiled. ”What do you think our biggest challenge with internists is?”
”They still think that biotech is a cutting-edge new science. When actually, the Romans used biotechnology. Any time you add yeast to make bread, or wine, you're transplanting bacteria. Beer is biotech.”
”Beer is biotech. I'll have the T-s.h.i.+rts printed this weekend.”
Shane s.h.i.+fted in his seat. ”So, you know who runs each sales department. Who do you think might be a good fit for me?”
”I have an opening for a sales director.”
Shane blinked.
”I realize we have more than ten employees just in our mail room,” Dennis shook his head, his voice dropping as he considered this.
”That's not why I came to see you.”
”I know. And I know we're the opposite of a boutique or a start-up. But”-Dennis raised a finger and narrowed his eyes-”we started that way, and many of the people here can remember those days. That ethos hasn't gone anywhere. And I do have a solid position open. I'm supposed to interview someone for it after work tonight.”
”Don't you guys have a nepotism policy?”
”You don't graft firefly cells onto human genes if you're following every policy.”
”What's the director lead?”
”Sorion.”
Shane swallowed a wash of disappointment. Sorion was Helixia's marquee drug; the nanosecond it had been approved, in 1994, their stock had doubled. Its use had spread so quickly that conferences detailing its growth had to be rewritten quarterly. The time to be working on it, Shane felt, was fifteen years ago.
Dennis read his eyes. ”It's a good place to learn our business. It's stable. You can make connections, get your footing. And there's none of the frantic all-night panics of a Phase Three.”
”I like all-night panics,” Shane told him.
Dennis smiled, revealing surprisingly yellow teeth. ”Oh, don't worry,” he a.s.sured him, ”you'll get them.”
hat evening, he and Janelle walked into a small n.o.b Hill steakhouse.
They were greeted by dim lighting and a somber jazz. The whole vibe seemed too down for Shane's mood, but it was too late for a change of plan. Doctor Wenceslas Chin and his wife Cynthia were waiting for them at the bar, and Wenceslas loved his steak. Shane felt lighter the instant he saw them.
Wenceslas was an internist at Greenbrae Medical a.s.sociates, a general practice catering to Marin's elite. He had a wide South Chinese face and behind his round eyegla.s.ses lay happy eyes. He and Shane had become close friends these last years, played countless rounds of golf, and shared many bottles of Shane's beloved Was.h.i.+ngton State reds at medical conferences, on Orco. This dinner would be their last with the Saint Louis pharma picking up the check, without the accompaniment of an infant, their last before so many things promised to change.
”Oh my G.o.d,” Cynthia laughed, hugging Janelle. ”When are you due, today?”
”Next week.”
Her eyes fell to Janelle's protruding belly. ”Can I touch it?”
”Go crazy.”
Watching Janelle lean forward stirred Shane. Nine months of pregnancy had only made her more alluring to him. She wore a black and gold top over ashen maternity cigarette pants that expanded over her belly. Her black hair was parted down the middle, the steakhouse's soft light showcasing its maroon highlights. When he touched her arm and back, her skin seemed moist. Small black moles had begun to appear on her body, and a slight vertical line had developed from her navel southward, as if her seams were showing.
Plus, Janelle had a new way of looking at him, with swollen eyes, and a slightly upturned mouth, that made him feel something very deep that he could not quite identify. Shane took her hand as they walked to an oddly high table, which added to his mounting sense of silliness.
”Hey”-Wenceslas leaned across the table-”I got one of those checks.”
Shane nodded. The Big Pharmas had begun sending unrequested checks for between ten and a hundred thousand dollars to doctors. Fine print explained that cas.h.i.+ng them was the equivalent of signing a contract for exclusive prescriptions. The FDA, Shane felt, would come down very hard on these companies and doctors soon. Except that after a decade, they still hadn't.
”How much?”
”Thirty thousand. With a letter about being a valuable doctor at an important practice.”
”You cash it?”