Strong Medicine (31 page)

dinner, "that I'd suggested canceling the Declaration of Independence and

taking us back to colonial status."

Something Sam was teaming quickly was that holding the company's top job

neither gave him carte blanche to do as he wished nor freed him from the

shifting sands of corporate politics.

A practicing expert in company politics was the director of research,

Vincent Lord, also an immediate objector to Sam's proposal. While

agreeing that more money should be spent on research, Dr. Lord described

the idea of doing so in Britain as 'InaIve" and Sam Hawthorne's view of

British science as "kindergarten thinking, founded on a propaganda myth."

The unusually strong, even insulting words were in a memo addressed to

Sam, with a copy to a friend and ally of Vince Lord's on the board of

directors. On first reading the memo, Sam burned with anger and, leaving

his office, sought out Vincent Lord on the research director's own

ground.

Walking on impeccable polished floors through the research division's

glass-lined, air-filtered corridors, Sam was reminded of the many

millions of dollars, virtually limitless sums, expended by Felding-Roth

on research equipment-modem, computerized, gleaming, occasionally

mysterious-housed in pleasant, spacious laboratories and served by an

army of white-coated scientists and technicians. What was here

represented an academic scientist's dream, but was a norm for any major

pharmaceutical company. The money poured into drug research was seldom,

if ever, stinted.

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It was only the specifics of expenditure which occasionally, as now, became

a subject for argument.

Vincent Lord was in his paneled, book-lined, brightly lighted office. The

door was open and Sam Hawthorne walked in, nodding casually to a secretary

outside who had been about to stop himthen, seeing who it was, changed her

mind. Dr. Lord, in a White coat over shirtsleeves, was at his desk,

frowning as he so often did, at this moment over a paper he was reading. He

looked up in surprise, his dark eyes peering through rimless. glasses, his

ascetic face showing annoyance at the unannounced intrusion.

Sam had been carrying Lord's memo. Putting it on the desk, he announced, "I

came to talk about this."

The research director made a halfhearted gesture of rising, but Sam waved

him down. "Informal, Vince," Sam said. "Informal, and some face-to-face,

blunt talking."

Lord glanced at the memo on his desk, leaning forward shortsightedly to

confirm its subject matter. "What don't you like about it?"

2le content and the tone."

'What else is there?"

Sam reached for the paper and turned it around. "It's quite well typed."

"I suppose," Lord said with a sardonic smile, "now that you're head honcho,

Sam, you'd like to be surrounded by 'yes men."'

Sam Hawthorne sighed. He had known Vince Lord for fifteen years, had grown

accustomed to the research director's difficult ways, and was prepared to

make allowances for them. He answered mildly, "You know that isn't true.

What I want is a reasoned discussion and better causes for disagreeing with

me than you've given already."

"Speaking of reasoning," Lord said, opening a drawer of his desk and

removing a file, "I strongly object to a statement of yours."

'Which one?"

'About our own research." Consulting the file, Lord quoted from Sam's

proposal about the British institute. "'While our competitors have

introduced major, successful new drugs, we have had only minor ones. Nor do

we have anything startling in sight."'

:'So prove me wrong."

'We have a number of promising developments in sight," Lord insisted.

"Several of the new, young scientists I've brought in are working-"

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"Vince," Sam said, "I know about those things. I read your reports,

remember? Also, I applaud the talent you've recruited."

It was true, Sam thought. One of Vincent Lord's strengths across the years

had been his ability to attract some of the cream of scientific newcomers.

A reason was that Lord's own reputation was still high, despite his failure

to achieve the major discovery that had been expected of him for so long.

Nor was there any real dissatisfaction with Lord's role as research

director; the dry spell was one of those misfortunes that happened to drug

companies, even with the best people heading their scientific sides.

"The progress reports I send to you," Lord said, "are always weighted with

caution. That's because I have to be wary about letting you and the

merchandising gang become excited about something which is still

experimental."

"I know that," Sam said, "and I accept it." He was aware that in any drug

company a perpetual tug-of-war existed between sales and manufacturing on

the one hand and research on the other. As the sales people expressed it,

"Research always wants to be a hundred and ten percent sure of every goddam

detail before they'll say, 'Okay, let's go!' " Manufacturing, similarly,

was eager to gear up for production and not be caught out by sudden demands

when a new drug was required in quantity. But, on the other side of the

equation, researchers accused the merchandising arm of "wanting to rush

madly onto the market with a product that's only twenty percent proven,

just to beat competitors and have an early lead in sales."

"What I'll tell you now, and what isn't in my reports," Vincent Lord

informed Sam, "is that we're getting excitingly good results with two

compounds--one, a diuretic, the other an anti-inflammatory for rheumatoid

arthritis."

"That's excellent news."

"There's also our application for Derogil pending before the FDA."

"The new anti-hypertensive." Sam knew that Derogil, to control high blood

pressure, was not a revolutionary drug but might become a good profit

maker. He asked, "Is our application getting anywhere?"

Lord said sourly, "Not so you'd notice. Those puffed-up nincompoops in

Washington He paused. "I'm going there again next week."

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"I still don't think my statement was wrong," Sam said. "But since you

feel strongly, I'll modify it when the board meets."

Vincent Lord nodded as if the concession were no more than his due, then

went on, "There's also my own research on the quenching of free radicals.

I know, after all this time, you believe nothing will come of it-"

"I've never said that," Sam protested. "Never once! At times you choose

to disbelieve it, Vince, but there are some of us here who have faith in

you. We also know that important discoveries don't come easily or

quickly."

Sam had only a sketchy idea of what the quenching of free radicals

involved. He knew the objective was to eliminate toxic effects of drugs

generally, and was something Vincent Lord had persevered with for a

decade. If successful, there would be strong commercial possibilities.

But that was all.

"Nothing you've told me," Sam said, getting up, "changes my opinion that

creating a British research center is a good idea."

"And I'm still opposed because it's unnecessary." The research director's

reply was adamant, though as an afterthought he added, "Even if your plan

should go ahead, we must have control from here."

Sam Hawthorne smiled. "We'll discuss that later, if and when," But in his

mind, Sam knew that letting Vincent Lord have control of the new British

research institute was the last thing he would permit to happen.

When Lord was alone, he crossed to the outer door and closed it. Then,

returning, he slumped in his chair disconsolately. He sensed that the

proposal for a Felding-Roth research institute in Britain would go ahead

despite his opposition, and he saw the new development as a threat to

himself, a sign that his scientific dominance in the company was

slipping. How much farther would it slip, he wondered, before he was

eclipsed entirely?

So much would have been different, be reflected gloomily, if his own

personal research had progressed better and faster than it had. As it

was, he wondered, what did he have to show for his life in science?

He was now forty-eight, no longer the young and brilliant wizard with a

newly minted Ph.D. Even some of his own techniques and knowledge, he was

aware, were out of date. Oh, yes, he still read extensively and kept

himself informed. Yet that kind of knowledge

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was never quite the same as original involvement in the scientific field in

which your expertise developed-organic chemistry in his own case; developed

to become an art, so that always and forever after you had instinct and

experience to guide you. In the new field of genetic engineering, for

example, he was not truly comfortable, not as at home in it as were the new

young scientists now pouring from the universities, some of whom he had

recruited for FeldingRoth.

And yet, he reasoned-reassured himself-despite the changes and fresh

knowledge, the possibility of a titanic breakthrough with the work he had

been doing still was possible, still could come at any time. Within the

parameters of organic chemistry an answer existed-an answer to his

questions posed through countless experiments over ten long years of

grinding research.

The quenching of free radicals.

Along with the answer Vincent Lord sought would come enormous therapeutic

benefits, plus unlimited commercial possibilities which Sam Hawthorne and

others in the company, in their scientific ignorance, had so far failed to

grasp.

What would the quenching of free radicals achieve?

The answer: something essentially simple but magnificent.

Like all scientists in his field, Vincent Lord knew that many drugs, when

in action in the human body and as part of their metabolism, generated

"free radicals." These were elements harmful to healthy tissue, and the

cause of adverse side effects and sometimes death.

Elimination, or "quenching," of free radicals would mean that beneficial

drugs, other drugs, which previously could not be used on humans because of

dangerous side effects, could be taken by anyone with impunity. And

restricted drugs, hitherto used only at great risk, could be absorbed as

casually as aspirin.

No longer need physicians, when prescribing for their patients, worry about

toxicity of drugs. No longer need cancer patients suffer agonies from the

near-deadly drugs which sometimes kept them &live, but equally often

tortured, then killed them from some other cause than cancer. The

beneficial effects of those and all other drugs would remain, but the

killing effects would be nullified by the quenching of free radicals.

What Vincent Lord hoped to produce was a drug to add to other drugs, to

make them totally safe.

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And it was all possible. The answer existed. It was there. Hidden,

elusive, but waiting to be found.

And Vincent Lord, after ten years' searching, believed he was close to

that elusive answer. He could smell it, sense it, almost taste the nectar