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“In theory, a company’s monopoly on a drug dissolves after its patents expire and generics flood the market.”
“So it’s about exclusivity?”
“Isn’t everything, when it comes to money?”
“Actually, in my line of work, it’s just the opposite.”
I ignore her sarcasm and go on. “Drug companies usually file for patents in the discovery stages as a way of staking their territory in the field. The approval process for drugs from the FDA involves lengthy clinical trials, which usually take around twelve years—meaning that manufacturers typically only get to actually sell their drugs exclusively for about eight years before generics come onto the market.”
“And let me guess? That’s where you come in?”
“Exactly. The most common way to extend the shelf life of exclusivity is to change a drug ever so slightly. A company can file a new patent if it makes a version of a drug with a slightly different dosage, or with a different way it’s released in the body over time. The patent system doesn’t require something to necessarily be better—just different. Which means that rather than creating new medicines, pharmaceutical companies are largely recycling and repurposing.”
“I can’t say I find that surprising.”
“My job is to take existing therapies and reformulate them to have the same effect. But sometimes I get lucky in the tweaking and find something that has an effect we hadn’t counted on. In a good way. And when that happens, I sell the formula on the black market. Like a free agent. Kind of like you.”
“Is it legal?”
“It’s a gray area.”
“For the drug companies, I mean.”
I shrug. “Competitors could theoretically make the case in court that these compounds aren’t actually different, but the legal battle would likely be too costly and time-consuming to be worth it.”
“And what makes this deal different?”
“The drug itself. And the fact that I don’t trust the buyer.”
“Does that matter?”
“Not usually,” I say. “But this time it does.”
Amanda/Vanessa/Emily as I’ve taken to calling her, wants to visit the St. Louis Cathedral before we hit the road. “Where your attention is, there will be your heart also,” I tell her in response. “Jesus said that.”
“Oh.” She looks at me funny. “And what do you know of Jesus?”
“Not nearly enough, apparently.”
“I love churches,” she says. “Especially the old ones.”
I scan the crowd. “I feel exactly the opposite.”
She raises her brow, so I don’t stop there. “A religious prostitute. I never thought I’d see that.”
Her eyes open wider, like she can see something denied to the rest of us. “Sex is the closest to God you’ll ever come.”
I seem to forget people can always surprise you. “Never thought I’d get turned on by a prostitute in a church either and yet—”
“Look at you just ticking things off.”
“You grow up in church?”
“Literally,” she says.
“And you believe all that stuff?”
“I don’t know what I believe. Not anymore.”
