Part 10 (2/2)
”This man”-Shane gestured to Prajuk-”invented it.”
A stocky woman in her sixties exclaimed, ”Oh, my Lord.”
She took a step forward and hugged Prajuk. Shane watched him accept uncomfortably.
An older man, with a head full of thick white hair and eyes that registered honor, stepped forward. This man, thought Shane, had served. His watery hazel eyes never left Prajuk's, and he clasped his shoulder as if there were some secret history between them.
A well-appointed woman, possibly his daughter, spoke softly. ”He was wasting down to nothing. He had pneumonia, he couldn't walk. Then he started on your drug. Now you just look at him.”
Shane asked, amazed, ”Did it work right away?”
”Oh no,” she shook her head. ”When he first took it he got a bad fever. A hundred and four, the doctors wanted him off of it.”
”That is a good sign,” Prajuk nodded. ”That is the cancer cells dying in the millions. The body just cannot process all of these dead cells at once.”
She went on, ”He still has his tumors, but they stopped growing. He plays golf. He does the yard.”
The man finally spoke. ”I know you saved my life.”
And then overhead lights blinked, signaling the start of the conference. Shane presented an overview of Sorion's sales, projected growth. He ably charted Asia-Pacific projections and gracefully handed the stage to the finance team. Patients spoke, some of them moved to tears, then oncologists, and one medical school dean from San Diego. Afterward, the trade reporters began to drink at the hotel bar. At Orco, he thought, he would have laid down a corporate card and suggested some stories on his other drugs. Now, he just went to find Prajuk.
On the drive back, Shane watched the slight scientist look out at the orange electric buses.
”Thank you for inviting me. This thing, I am very . . .” he seemed to be searching for a word. ”This mattered to me.”
Shane smiled. ”That's really, really good.”
”We never see the patients.”
”We'll do it again.” As he hit the on-ramp, a thought occurred to him. ”So, do you know anything about lung disease?”
”Lung cancer?”
”No, more inherited genetic diseases?”
Prajuk raised his eyes. ”A bit.”
”My brother knows a baby who has one called alpha-one ant.i.trypsin deficiency.” His mouth stumbled over the syllables. ”It's pretty rare.”
”I know it. How old is the baby?”
”About four months.”
”In infants the prognosis is fairly poor. Is that what they told your brother?”
”That's right.”
”Of course we've been quite involved with immune-system-sponsored lung disease for a long time.”
”Helixia, you mean?”
”My team.”
”You work on lung diseases?”
”We developed this thing Airifan.”
Shane slowed behind a truck and looked at him. ”You worked on Airifan?”
”This thing is going to save quite a lot of lives.”
”It's out of trials, right?”
”It resides in a lovely limbo between FDA approval and Marketing. One is understaffed, and the other is busy designing golf s.h.i.+rts with the logo.”
Shane took the hit with a grin and changed lanes.
”It must feel incredible,” he said quietly, ”to create something that saves people.”
”Oh, definitely. Airifan will save many lives. It will also prevent other suffering. Current childhood asthma medication is steroids, and there are many concerns with steroids in children. Airifan has no steroids at all.”
”What are projected sales?”
”Oh, you would need to ask the finance people but it's blockbuster for sure. A billion a year, probably. But asthma is just a part of it. The real target is emphysema, which is fatal one hundred percent of the time. The technology we developed for Airifan is the key to a treatment. We believe it will be prescribed off-label for emphysema fairly quickly.”
”My wife's grandfather died of emphysema.”
”Big smoker?”
”He's Chinese.”
”Ah,” Prajuk said flatly.
Shane's eyebrows raised. ”Children with alpha-one ant.i.trypsin deficiency get emphysema.”
”Definitely.”
”So they're linked?”
Prajuk began slowly, as if deciding exactly what he wanted to say. ”Drugs are like houses, Shane. They have many doors. We open each door to see where it leads, but we can't go wandering around. If a door leads to the room we intend to visit, say asthma, we go through it. If it does not, if it leads to a detour, we close it behind us. The question is always, which doors should we go through, and which should we shut?”
Shane nodded, picking up speed.
”Emphysema is a Helixia priority. A few years ago, Amgen put a treatment on the market, but it only worked for ten percent of patients. Anthony feels that Airifan may work for eighty percent. It took us six years in the lab to get there, and then another eight years of trials. Fourteen years. A hundred million dollars. In terms of my career, this is a huge project. We cannot afford any detours.” Prajuk swallowed. ”This thing, alpha-one ant.i.trypsin deficiency, is a door we opened and closed some years ago.”
”Closed?”
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