"The Venetian Betrayal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Berry Steve)THIRTY-TWOVENICE 8:50 A.M. VINCENTI ENTERED THE MAIN SALON OF HIS PALAZZO AND READIED himself. Usually, he did not bother with these types of presentations. After all, Philogen Pharmaceutique employed an extensive marketing and sales department with hundreds of employees. This, however, was something special, something that demanded only his presence, so he’d arranged for a private presentation at his home. He noticed that the outside advertising agency, headquartered in Milan, seemed to have taken no chances. Four representatives, three females and a male, one a senior vice president, had been dispatched to brief him. “Damaris Corrigan,” the vice president said in English, introducing herself and her three associates. She was an attractive woman, in her early fifties, dressed in a dark blue, chalk-striped suit. Off to the side, coffee steamed from a silver urn. He walked over and poured himself a cup. “We couldn’t help but wonder,” Corrigan said, “is something about to happen?” He unbuttoned his suit jacket and settled into an upholstered chair. “What do you mean?” “When we were retained six months ago, you wanted suggestions on marketing a possible HIV cure. We wondered then if Philogen was on the brink of something. Now, with you wanting to see what we have, we thought maybe there’d been a breakthrough.” He silently congratulated himself. “I think you voiced the operative word. His guest acknowledged the explanation with a nod, then she paraded to a waiting easel. He shot a glance at one of the women sitting next to him. A shapely brunette, not more than thirty or thirty-five, in a tight-fitting wool skirt. He wondered if she was an account executive or just decoration. “I’ve done some fascinating reading over the past few weeks,” Corrigan said. “HIV seems to have a split personality, depending on what part of the globe you’re studying.” “There’s truth to that observation,” he said. “Here, and in places like North America, the disease is reasonably containable. No longer a leading cause of death. People simply live with it. Symptomatic drugs have reduced the mortality rate by more than half. But in Africa and Asia it’s an entirely different story. Worldwide, last year, three million died of HIV.” “And that’s what we did first,” she said. “Identified our projected market.” She folded back the blank top sheet on the pad affixed to the easel, revealing a chart. “These figures represent the latest incidents of worldwide HIV infections.” REGIONS-NUMBER North America-1,011,000 Western Europe-988,000 Australia-Pacifica-22,000 Latin America-1,599,000 Sub-Saharan Africa-20,778,000 Caribbean-536,000 Eastern Europe-2,000 Southeast Mediterranean-893,000 Northeast Asia-6,000 Southeast Asia- Total-37,112,000 “What’s the data source?” Vincenti asked. “World Health Organization. And this represents the total current market available for any cure.” Corrigan flipped to the next page. “This chart fine-tunes the available market. As you can see, the data shows roughly a quarter of worldwide HIV infections have already resulted in a manifestation of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Nine million HIV-infected individuals now have full-blown AIDS.” REGIONS-NUMBER North America-555,000 Western Europe-320,500 Australia-Pacifica-14,000 Latin America-573,500 Sub-Saharan Africa-6,300,000 Caribbean-160,500 Eastern Europe-10,800 Southeast Mediterranean-15,000 Northeast Asia-17,600 Southeast Asia- Total-9,306,900 Corrigan flipped to the next chart. “This shows the projections for five years from now. Again, this data came from the World Health Organization.” REGIONS-ESTIMATE North America-8,150,000 Western Europe-2,331,000 Australia-Pacifica-45,000 Latin America-8,554,000 Sub-Saharan Africa-33,609,000 Caribbean-6,962,000 Eastern Europe-20,000 Southeast Mediterranean-3,532,000 Northeast Asia-486,000 Southeast Asia- Total-108,748,000 “Amazing. We could soon have one hundred ten million people infected, worldwide, with HIV. Current statistics indicate that fifty percent of these individuals will eventually develop AIDS. Forty percent of that fifty percent will be dead within two years. Of course, the vast majority of these will be in Africa and Asia.” Corrigan shook her head. “Quite a market, wouldn’t you say?” Vincenti digested the figures. Using a mean of seventy million HIV cases, even at a conservative five thousand euros per year for treatment, any cure would initially generate three hundred and fifty billion euros. True, once the initial infected population was cured, the market would dwindle. So what? The money would be made. More than anyone could ever spend in a lifetime. Later, there’d surely be new infections and more sales, not the billions the initial campaign would generate, but a continuous windfall nonetheless. “Our next analysis involved a look at the competition. From what we’ve been able to learn from the WHO, roughly sixteen drugs are now being used globally for the symptomatic treatment of AIDS. There are roughly a dozen players in this game. The sales from your own drugs were just over a billion euros last year.” Philogen owned patents for six medicines that, when used in conjunction with others, had proven effective in arresting the virus. Though it took, on average, about fifty pills a day, the so-called cocktail therapy was all that really worked. Not a cure, the deluge of medication simply confused the virus, and it was only a matter of time before nature outsmarted the microbiologists. Already, drug-resistant HIV strains had emerged in Asia and China. “We took a look at the combination treatments,” Corrigan said. “A three-drug regimen costs on average about twenty thousand euros a year. But that form of treatment is basically a Western luxury. It’s nonexistent in Africa and Asia. Philogen donates, at reduced costs, medications to a few of the affected governments, but to treat those patients similarly would cost billions of euros a year, money no African government has to spend.” His own marketing people had already told him the same thing. Treatment was not really an option for the ravaged third world. Stopping the spread of HIV was the only cost-effective method to attack the crisis. Condoms were the initial instrument of choice, and one of Philogen’s subsidiaries couldn’t make the things fast enough. Sales had risen in the thousands of percent over the course of the last two decades. And so had profits. But, of late, the use of condoms had steadily dropped. People were becoming complacent. Corrigan was saying, “According to its own propaganda, one of your competitors, Kellwood-Lafarge, spent more than a hundred million euros on AIDS-cure research last year alone. You spent about a third of that.” He threw the woman a smirk. “Competing with Kellwood-Lafarge is akin to fishing for whales with a rod and reel. It’s the largest drug conglomerate on the planet. Hard to match somebody euro for euro when the other guy has over a hundred billion in year gross revenues.” He sipped his coffee as Corrigan flipped to a clean chart. “Getting away from all that, let’s take a look at product ideas. A name of course, for any cure, is critical. Currently, of the sixteen symptomatic drugs on the market, designations vary. Things like Bactrim, Diflucan, Intron, Pentam, Videx, Crixivan, Hivid, Retrovir. Because of the worldwide use any cure will enjoy, we thought a simpler, more universal designation, like AZT utilized, might be better from a marketing standpoint. From what we were told, Philogen now has eight possible cures under development.” Corrigan flipped to the next chart, which showed packaging concepts. “We have no way of knowing if any cure will be solid or liquid, taken orally or by injection, so we created variations, keeping the colors in your black-and-gold motif.” He studied the proposals. She pointed to the easel. “We left a blank for the name, to be inserted in gold letters. We’re still working on that. The important thing about this scheme is that even if the name doesn’t translate in a particular language, the package will be distinctive enough to provide immediate recognition.” He was pleased, but thought it best to suppress a smile. “I have a possible name. Something I’ve beaten around in my head.” Corrigan seemed interested. He stood, walked to the easel, opened a marker, and wrote ZH. He noticed a puzzled look on everyone’s face. “Zeta. Eta. Old Greek. It meant ‘life.’” Corrigan nodded. “Appropriate.” He agreed. |
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