Eagle Country, Minnesota.
Freeman's head was steaming with hot steam. He lay in the jacuzzi with his eyes closed to relax, and the muscle fatigue all over his body was relieved.
As a professional athlete, he has to perform high-intensity exercises every day to maintain his physical fitness.
After soaking for half an hour, he got up, wrapped himself in his bathrobe and returned to the living room.
At this time, the phone rang. After he answered the call, without saying a few words, his expression suddenly became excited.
"What? You applied for the oral insulin trial qualification for me?"
"Great, I'll go there tomorrow morning."
After hanging up the phone, Freeman became excited.
Just now, a personal doctor called and said that Sanqing Group's oral insulin has finally started clinical trials in Eagle Country. This new drug has outstanding efficacy and is easy to take, making it very suitable for athletes like him.
From now on, you only need to take oral tablets every day to achieve the effect of taking in insulin and controlling blood sugar.
No more having to stick an insulin pump on your belly.
Thinking of this, Freeman looked at the insulin pump on his body with some disgust.
Carrying something like this around all the time is too inconvenient for high-intensity exercise.
Although he is used to it, it would be best if he could take it off.
When he thought that he would be able to take oral insulin tomorrow, he felt relieved and walked into the bedroom with brisk steps.
This thing probably won't last long.
At the age of 21, he had just become a skier when he was diagnosed with Type I diabetes.
That was the first time he heard about this disease. When the doctor suggested that he end his skiing career and change his job, it was like a bolt from the blue, which made him extremely depressed.
Fortunately, Freeman has a tenacious character and did not compromise with his fate. Instead, he cooperated with the doctor for active treatment, injected insulin in strict accordance with the doctor's instructions, adjusted his diet according to his exercise training, tested his blood sugar, and regularly screened for complications every year.
Through a series of strict measures, he finally successfully controlled his condition, maintained a high level of competitive physical fitness, and completed a reversal of fortune.
Just 2 years after being diagnosed with diabetes, he won a gold medal in skiing at the Winter Olympics.
To this day, he has won multiple gold medals as a diabetic athlete and is globally renowned.
People saw his achievements and praised him full of praise, but no one knew that he had to test his blood sugar five or six times a day, inject insulin every day, and wear an insulin pump 24 hours a day.
He has always longed deeply for diabetes to be completely cured.
If it doesn't work, at least it can allow him to take insulin orally without having to hang an insulin pump like a pig's tail on his body.
Fortunately, the development of technology finally allowed him to wait for this day.
Perhaps, the day when diabetes is completely cured is no longer far away.
Freeman has never been more confident than he is today.
The next day, he went to the scheduled medical facility and started trying the medicine.
After experiencing it, I couldn’t help but be surprised and delighted.
This oral insulin is as easy to use as he imagined.
No, it's even better.
You only need to calculate the dosage and take the medicine on time before meals every day, and your blood sugar will always remain stable.
No longer do you have to endure the sudden alarm sound of the insulin pump, no longer have to keep an eye on the speed of the insulin pump, and worry about interrupting the insulin infusion.
Just like a bird regaining its wings and soaring high in the sky, he once again experienced the feeling of freedom.
There are many people like Freeman who are involved in drug trials.
They experienced the benefits of oral insulin during the trial, and naturally they disliked injecting insulin in every possible way.
When the trial ended, everyone felt disappointed and couldn't accept it. They wished they could buy this new drug in the pharmacy right away.
Unfortunately, phase III clinical trials require a large number of samples and long-term clinical observation, and cannot be quickly launched on the market in a short period of time.
Especially for chronic disease drugs that need to be taken for a long time, the patient's life is not in danger for the time being. There are also similar drugs on the market with more stringent requirements and a longer time.
Even if the breakthrough rapid application model is adopted, it will take half a year to a year to verify the safety of the drug on a large scale.
Even after it is put on the market, it must continue to follow up on the clinical phase four verification. If there are any problems, it may be ordered to delist at any time.
Such a complete set of clinical trials costs extremely high amounts of money, often tens of millions of dollars. Except for pharmaceutical giants, few pharmaceutical companies can afford it.
This is why the successful development of a new drug is only the first step, and reaching the third clinical phase is half the success.
And it will not be considered a complete success until it is listed on the market and sells well.
Even if most laboratories and small companies successfully develop a drug, they cannot afford the subsequent clinical expenses. They can only cooperate with large pharmaceutical companies to ensure that the drug remains on the market for sale.
*******
Just as the reputation of oral insulin was slowly fermenting on the other side of the ocean.
Domestic clinical phase III trials are also progressing simultaneously.
Wei Kang is very satisfied with the progress of this project.
"The next step is to proceed step by step. When the third phase of clinical trials is completed, it will be launched next year at the earliest."
"There's no rush for this, you can take your time."
The insulin farce in Eagle Country has naturally spread to the country, and has been broadcasted by various media outlets. Everyone is just as addicted to watching a wonderful drama series with ups and downs and twists at every turn.
Wei Kang naturally paid attention to this matter and felt dumbfounded by it.
"Eagle Country is indeed a free country. No matter how bloody things are, things can happen. Fortunately, the final result is not bad."
"At least Eli Lilly was the first to give in, and the price of insulin has been significantly reduced. The burden on diabetics can finally be greatly reduced, and they can live a better life."
"Eli Lilly is indeed a pharmaceutical giant, and its response is really fast. These old guys who have been alive and well for more than a hundred years are indeed old foxes, and none of them are easy to deal with."
"I just don't know if other insulin manufacturers will follow suit. If they insist on not lowering prices, the market will probably be divided up by Eli Lilly. I guess they are not that stupid. In the end, sooner or later they will compromise and lower prices together."
"The pattern of the insulin market has been established. At least overseas, oral insulin will occupy the mid-to-high-end market. The price of injected insulin has dropped significantly, making it a daily drug that even the poor can afford. This is a great benefit for people with diabetes."
“The so-called technology promotes social development, that’s probably what it is.”
"If the Big Three can complete their transformation and focus on anti-diabetic drugs, it's hard to say whether it will be a blessing or a curse."
Wei Kang knew very well that Eli Lilly's price reduction was naturally based on its GLP-1 antidiabetic drug.
If you can't beat them, then give up, change the track and try your best, and never hang yourself from a tree. This is the fine tradition of these old pharmaceutical giants.
Diabetes itself is a complex chronic disease, and new treatment ideas and solutions are emerging in an endless stream. As long as they are effective, they will sell well.
Even hereditary diabetes is caused by multiple gene mutations and is not inherited from a single gene. What is inherited is not the disease itself, but the susceptibility to diabetes. Certain environmental factors must contribute to the occurrence of diabetes.
In general, the need for insulin therapy depends on the degree of insulin deficiency.
For patients with type I diabetes, insulin treatment is necessary, but for many patients with type II diabetes, insulin only strengthens treatment. They are not so dependent on insulin and can take hypoglycemic drugs such as GLP-1. to make improvements.
After hundreds of years of development, hypoglycemic drugs have become rich and colorful, showing a flourishing attitude, and cannot be monopolized by one pharmaceutical company.
Sanqing currently has some anti-diabetic drugs, but they are only in one or two directions and are not the most popular categories.
However, Weicome does not intend to join the crowded new track of GLP-1 receptor agonists.
As a technology-driven pharmaceutical group, the choice of research and development direction must be consistent with its own technical field. It cannot be like investors who flock to any hot track when they see it.
The long-term solution is to first consolidate the basic foundation of type I diabetes, and then combine its own advantages to develop deeply in this field.
Wei Kang had already planned for this, and completely curing diabetes was his ultimate goal.
The reason why diabetes cannot be cured is closely related to the damage of pancreatic islet cells, insulin resistance, and insulin secretion.
But in the final analysis, it is still a problem of damaged islet cells.
Pancreatic islet cells are highly differentiated cells that cannot replicate themselves. Once damaged, they cannot regenerate and cannot secrete insulin normally.
Some other tissue cells, such as liver cells, have a low degree of differentiation, can continue to replicate, and have strong regenerative capabilities.
When the liver is damaged, the liver can repair itself, so many liver problems can be restored to normal through medication and maintenance, but pancreatic islet cells are powerless.
If many people with type II diabetes only have problems with insulin resistance and secretion, they can still recover by taking medicine and diet control.
However, if the pancreatic islet cells are damaged, even if blood sugar is controlled, lifelong medication or even insulin injections may be required.
Not to mention people with type I diabetes. Most of the pancreatic islet cells have been damaged as soon as the disease develops, and they can only inject insulin throughout their lives to stay alive.
Since islet cells cannot regenerate, transplantation can only solve the problem after damage.
In fact, islet cell transplantation has always been a cutting-edge topic in medicine.
Not only are there many successful animal experiments, but there are also some successful cases in clinical trials.
There are not even too obvious side effects. Most patients' conditions are relieved and the amount of insulin injections is significantly reduced. Some patients even return to normal life after transplantation without taking medicines and insulin injections.
The only problem is that islet cells mainly come from donated pancreas, and the sources are very limited.
The maintenance time is also very limited. All patients who undergo cell transplantation will develop immune rejection after a few months, or at most one to two years, and return to the state before transplantation. The effect cannot be maintained permanently.
This technology requires the intermittent transplantation of islet cells to patients. Generally speaking, it has not yet reached a mature stage. Moreover, the price of transplantation surgery is also very expensive and cannot be used to treat a huge number of diabetic patients.
These problems are not too big for Wei Kang.
Because he plans to use a new method, namely islet stem cell transplantation, for treatment.
The human body's pluripotent stem cells can differentiate into islet cells. As long as these differentiated cells are extracted, cultured in vitro islet cells, and transplanted into the human body, insulin can be secreted normally and diabetes can be completely cured.
However, there are currently many obstacles to using stem cell technology to reconstruct islet function. The technology for extracting and isolating islet stem cells and inducing the maturation of insulin-secreting cells needs to be further improved.
There is a lack of a universally recognized method for adequately differentiating stem cells into islet cells.
In some studies, pancreatic islet stem cells transformed from embryonic stem cells transformed into fetal tumors when treating diabetic mice, resulting in the loss of hypoglycemic effect and causing great safety issues.
Sanqing currently has the technology to differentiate stem cells into artificial blood and has made a breakthrough in stem cell research.
This gave Wei Kang enough confidence. He believed that as long as he conducted in-depth research in this area, sooner or later he could differentiate pluripotent stem cells into islet cells and produce islet cells for clinical use just like blood.
When that day comes, the treatment of diabetes will be revolutionized, and every patient will benefit from it.
Diabetes, a modern disease of affluence caused by the abundance of food, also has hope of being completely cured.
"The road is long and long, and I will search high and low. How difficult it is to truly cure a disease."
Wei Kang sighed and said: "We, the medical people, can only burn our lives and devote ourselves to it regardless of our own safety."
As more and more drugs were developed, he felt the burden on his shoulders became heavier and heavier.
If we say that at the beginning, he was just the boss of a small pharmaceutical company, and he just wanted to develop a flagship drug that was like a cash cow, so he would not have to worry about money in this life.
As for how medical technology develops and how human science and technology progress, that is none of his business.
Even when the sky falls, there are still tall people who are holding on. They are overcoming obstacles in the technical field, and there are scientists who are at the forefront.
So, at the current stage of Sanqing, as the light of human medicine, he has become the tallest person and the one at the front.
Many new technological breakthroughs and the expansion of new fields require his leadership and are inseparable from the efforts of all Sanqing people.
His mentality has also changed greatly, and money is no longer the most important thing to him.
It was replaced by a sense of social responsibility, which has become his life creed.
Sanqing is responsible to the motherland, to society, and even more to the millions of patients.
If you want to wear a crown, you must bear its weight.
If you are number one in an industry and cannot be aggressive and pioneering, what vitality will this industry have?
The Huaxia Pharmaceutical Industry used to just wait for death, desperately fighting internal conflicts, and fighting for the sake of a generic drug market.
There have never been any results from original research drugs in any cutting-edge field. All revenue is invested in sales, and the R&D department is dispensable.
Before the rise of Sanqing, Chinese giants were present in many industries, and they were among the best in the world.
Only the pharmaceutical industry is still in a stagnant state with no improvement, not even a single original drug that is selling well around the world.
If it weren't for Sanqing, it would be hard to imagine how such an industry would have gotten to where it is today.
Wei Kang sighed, calmed down, clicked on the computer and created a new project folder.
Then the assignment of project personnel begins.
After doing this, he started to check the progress of other projects.
"Very good. Several new drugs are progressing smoothly and have entered the third phase of clinical trials."
"The artificial heart project has recruited a ready-made team, completed personnel training and technology integration, and started research and development."
"With the cooperation of strong foreign aid, the bionic microneedle project has developed nano-alloy materials and is manufacturing the first batch of samples."
As he looked at it, his eyes suddenly lit up.
"Not bad, the samples of artificial blood vessels have been prepared."
(End of chapter)
