Radical Reaction

by Dawn Marsanne

  ‘Great, stuff,’ added Matt, encouragingly.

  ‘Wait a minute, I’ve not finished,’ said Brett. ‘We’ve had a couple of local business men who are thinking of investing six-figure sums and hot off the press, I was contacted only this morning by the secretary of Mr Radford who is funding the refurbishment of one of the labs.’

  ‘Oh, really? Well, that’s great. Poor guy though. It was tragic his daughter dying like that, then his wife taking her own life. I feel so sorry for him,’ added Matt.

  ‘Yes, well, it seems he’s been taking stock of his finances now after his two recent tragedies. His wife’s estate is finalised and so he wants to commit more to brain cancer research. It’s good of him in view of the fact that it could have been just what his daughter needed but she died before she could take part in a clinical trial. I’m not sure others would feel the same way.’

  ‘Any idea of what he’s thinking of investing?’

  ‘Well, it’s not decided but I was given the impression that we might be talking about half a million.’

  Nick whistled through his teeth. ‘Wow, that’s amazing. Wish I had that sort of money to invest.’

  ‘Well, his secretary didn’t say definitely but it could be even more, it depends on some sale or other. One of his businesses, she didn’t say which.’

  ‘So, if that were the case, he would be the next biggest shareholder after the university. But we need to ensure his stake is below twenty-five percent or we will get into hot water and we can’t be classed as an SME.’ To be classed as an SME, a small or medium enterprise, certain rules had to be obeyed and thus the company could access grants and tax breaks which would otherwise not be available.

  ‘I’ll write all this up and email you a copy. Obviously, it’s all a bit fluid at the moment but all looking very encouraging.’ Brett smiled and drank some of his coffee.

  Chapter 3

  Liam Bolton worked in the dispensary at Shipton’s pharmacy near the Lensfield estate in Persford. As it was in one of the less affluent areas, he parked his car about a quarter of a mile away in a road where he felt it was less likely to be vandalised. He had worked there since leaving school, starting as a shop assistant and had then received on the job training to assist the pharmacist by assembling the items to fulfil the prescription requests.

  The problem with this particular branch as Liam saw it, was that the customers were increasingly likely to be from the immigrant community. The adjacent medical centre was the nearest to the old Ministry of Defence (MOD) site which had become housing for a number of refugees from Syria. He’d taken a drive through it and had looked with envy at the housing. He would so love to be able to afford his own place but despite working he was still sharing a house with other people. The alternative was staying with his parents but they had made it quite clear it was time he stood on his own two feet.

  Also, the cheaper housing in the area in the area surrounding the pharmacy was taken by a significant proportion of people moving to the UK. In Liam’s view, most of them seemed to be in receipt of free prescriptions whereas he and his family had to pay for theirs.

  That morning he was working in the shop instead of the dispensary as one of the girls had phoned in sick.

  ‘Who’s next, can I help anyone?’ asked Liam.

  A woman stepped forward. ‘A prescription for Aisha Kouri, please.’

  ‘How do you spell that?’

  The woman hesitated. ‘K-O-U-R-I,’ she said slowly as Liam began to tap his fingers on the counter.

  ‘And your Christian name?’ he smiled. ‘Oh, sorry, your first name?’ he asked, chuckling to himself.

  The customer proceeded to spell her first name.

  ‘I’ll go and check,’ said Liam.

  He made a show of searching the packaged prescriptions in the dispensary but in truth, he wasn’t really looking.

  ‘No, sorry, it’s not been done. When did you bring it in?’

  ‘I take it to medical centre, they send it here.’

  ‘But when?’

  ‘I think a few days ago.’

  ‘You need to leave at least three days for it to be prepared,’ he said, speaking slowly and deliberately. ‘Come back tomorrow.’

  ‘But I have come on the bus. It should be ready now.’

  ‘No it’s not,’ said Liam sternly.

  ‘Please can you check and I will wait,’ she said.

  ‘We are very busy, it’s best you come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Who’s next?’ asked Liam, deciding he had finished with the customer before him. He recognised one of his regulars. ‘Ah, Mrs Weston, how are you today?’

  ‘Oh, not too bad Liam, mustn’t grumble.’

  ‘Your hair is looking lovely today,’ he added.

  ‘Oh, thank you. I like to look smart, I think it’s important.’ She looked critically at the young man next to her dressed in a tracksuit and trainers. Liam’s gazed strayed to the customer who was clearly overweight and unhealthy looking. Liam took pride in his appearance to the point of vanity. He had his hair trimmed every few weeks and enjoyed wearing smart clothes at all times. He felt they set him apart from the masses and boosted his confidence. He’d once overheard one of the assistants whispering about his clothes but it didn’t worry him. If anything, he was pleased that people were clearly jealous.

  ‘I wonder whether my prescription is ready?’ She leaned over to whisper. ‘I only put it in two days ago but I was passing so I wondered whether you could make it up for me?’

  ‘No problem,’ winked Liam. ‘Take a seat.’

  He went into the dispensary and looked up her details on the computer terminal. He could see that in fact her prescription had only come into the shop that morning but he took a plastic tray and set about collecting the necessary packets of pills and he placed it right at the front of the queue for checking. He went over to the seated Mrs Weston, ‘It will just be a couple of minutes,’ he said, then lowering his voice he added, ‘providing our friend pulls his finger out and checks it,’ he said, indicating with his head towards the pharmacist.

  ‘Oh, Liam, don’t be a naughty boy. These Indian chappies have to get work somewhere you know. I just wish it was somewhere else,’ she whispered, sniffing slightly at her last comment.

  Liam smiled, he liked Mrs Weston, they were on the same wavelength. She reminded him of his nan who had died a couple of years ago. He missed his chats with his nan, putting the world to rights.

  Whilst he had been busy in the back of the dispensary, Aisha Kouri had accosted the pharmacist, Harjit Agarwal as he emerged to hand out a prescription to a customer. Harjit had moved to Persford five years ago after qualifying at University College in London. His parents had moved to the UK from India in the seventies and he had been born here in 1992. He remembered this particular prescription as it was for a slow release version of a medicine to help with stomach and bowel cramps and he had to order further supplies as they didn’t have enough.

  ‘Liam?’ he called. ‘Mrs Kouri’s prescription. It’s definitely here. Can you check again please?’

  Liam was furious. He’d told her to come back the next day and she had refused to accept what he said. Now he was going to look a fool in front of the pharmacist. He went over to the boxes where he knew her prescription would be. Then he looked in the adjacent one.

  ‘Oh, here it is! Someone put it in the wrong place. I wish people would be more careful.’

  The pharmacist took it from him and personally took it out to Mrs Kouri. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, ‘and for the wait.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ she replied and left the shop.

  ‘Is Mrs Weston’s prescription ready yet?’ asked Liam brusquely.

  ‘I need to do the rest before that one,’ replied Harjit. ‘There is a queue.’

  Liam returned to the front of the shop and once more went over to Mrs Weston. ‘It won’t be long. So sorry that things are slow this morning.’ He leaned over to her. ‘I think he has trouble
with the English language,’ and he rolled his eyes.

  Mrs Weston tutted and nodded. ‘It’s the same everywhere. I remember the days when you Mr Somerville was the pharmacist. He was so nice. And efficient,’ she said pointedly looking over towards the dispensary. ‘But what can you do?’

  Liam shook his head in sympathy. Mrs Weston recognised there was a problem but had rolled over and accepted the downward spiral in society as he saw it. It was understandable, she was elderly and probably didn’t have the energy to fight the situation. However, he could and he intended to do something about it. It was time to stand up and be counted.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Right, over to me,’ said Nick, ‘I’ll just connect up my laptop as I’ve a few slides to help me.’ Nick pressed one of the keys repeatedly, ‘Ah, that should be it now,’ he said. He quickly rubbed his hand over his close cropped hair which was an involuntary sign of slight nervousness.

  ‘What did I tell you? Erin would have had that connected up in no time. She could always get things up!’

  ‘You are beginning to sound like a Carry on Film,’ said Matt.

  ‘I just mean that Erin was good with her hands and I’m sure a lot of men in the area could testify to that.’ Brett got up to swivel around the whiteboard so that the projection screen was facing the room and Nick’s first slide appeared.

  ‘Excellent. Firstly, the patent write-up is going well. The experimental details are almost completed. As you know, we did the initial filing a couple of months ago, we have another ten months to add any further examples to strengthen our claims. ’

  ‘Wow, that looks really encouraging,’ said Brett.

  ‘How many examples have we included so far?’

  ‘About a hundred and twenty, give or take.’

  ‘That’s brilliant. Of course we are making compounds all the time so it’s an ongoing job to add the write-ups for each one,’ commented Brett.

  ‘Yes but it much easier adding them as they are made rather than doing a whole load in one go.’

  Matt and Brett made some notes as Nick was speaking.

  ‘I’ve quite enjoyed it really. It’s been satisfying.’

  ‘Project manning?’ asked Matt.

  ‘Yes, we’ve now got five full-time chemists and our new recruit Adam Newman started last week, making six. It will take him a little while to get up to speed of course and the rest of the laboratory effort will be a bit diluted as they help him settle in.’

  ‘What about additional manning? asked Matt.

  ‘I think we should be able to finance two more positions at post-doctoral level. I really need to thrash all this out with Hilary though.’

  ‘Don’t try to compete for Hilary’s attentions,’ joked Brett. ‘She’s spoken for.’

  Nick smiled. He enjoyed Brett’s banter.

  ‘Well, that all looks great. Email me a copy of the costings. We need to be sure about our total financing before we commit to two further scientists.’

  ‘OK, no problem. So, this slide shows the biology manning costs. There aren’t any changes on that front. We plan to maintain our current contract for off-site testing, supported by further testing here,’ he paused before bringing up the next slide. ‘Finally some on-going costing and statistics from our outsourcing work with IndSyn.’

  There was silence in the meeting room whilst the other two men absorbed all Nick’s information.

  ‘As you can see the productivity is a little disappointing from IndSyn.’

  ‘How closely are you monitoring them and helping the contractors?’ asked Matt.

  ‘Much more closely than we had hoped. Pat and I have to keep offering lots of suggestions but the time difference between the UK and India doesn’t help. Also, it’s really hard to speak to the person doing the work as we always deal with the supervisors.’

  ‘I see,’ said Matt, rubbing his forehead.

  ‘We’ve told them that they can contact us at any time but they seem reluctant to ask for help. It’s as if they are embarrassed about any problems.’

  ‘Well, we can’t let it go on forever. We might need to look for another contractor. How long are we committed to IndSyn?’

  ‘We have another four months under the current contract.’

  ‘Hmm,’ mused Matt. ‘How are the quotes for scale-up going?’

  ‘Again, it’s a bit painful. I can’t get an idea of how professional some of these outfits are over the phone or from their websites. India would be the cheapest place to contract out and they are a lot more experienced in this sort of thing than China. But, well, without a recommendation from another company it’s a bit of a leap into the unknown.’

  The three partners sat in silence for a few moments thinking through the information.

  ‘What about going out there? Seeing for yourself which look the best companies. Trying to get a feel for their expertise?’ asked Brett.

  ‘Seriously?’ said Nick, looking rather surprised.

  ‘It could be money well spent, Brett’s right,’ added Matt.

  ‘Well, I don’t know. I could look into it. Plan an itinerary, cost it.’

  ‘Yes, do that and we’ll discuss again. Check what immunisation you would need. That might delay things.’

  ‘Well, Polly and I went to Thailand a few years ago so I might be protected against some things.’

  ‘OK, anything else?’

  ‘No, that’s me done for today.’

  ‘Right, over to me then,’ said Matt. ‘Well, I’m not sure how much you’ve heard through the grapevine about the state of play over at ClinTry?’ He raised his eyebrows but the other two shook their heads. ‘We had hoped to use ClinTry on the Science Park here for the bulk of the early stage trials, although admittedly they might not be able to do them all.’

  ‘So, what’s the problem?’ asked Brett.

  ‘Well, we thought that ClinTry was turning the corner, so to speak as they had the new director and the staff turnover seemed to have settled. But their finance sheet isn’t looking too healthy and really they need an injection of cash to keep them going otherwise they might have to close before we can start the next clinical trials of 627 with them.’

  ‘I didn’t know it was so bad,’ said Brett, frowning.

  ‘Nor did anyone. This is all very hush hush, so don’t tell anybody at the moment. But as you know they are part of a group and they might be offloaded soon if the head office doesn’t think they are viable. I think the bad publicity with the botched trial at BioQex when Bob screwed up has rubbed off on them and mud sticks. It seems other clinical units tried to capitalise on it to steal business from them, and well...’ Matt shrugged.

  ‘I don’t suppose we could finance them and bring them under the PersCure brand?’ said Brett.

  ‘I suggested this to Hilary but it’s too risky. Also, it doesn’t fit with the fledgling status of the company and the University doesn’t want to touch it,’ he shrugged. ‘So, watch this space. It’s possible there will be an announcement in the next few weeks. It’s a shame though. I was hoping this new manager whose name escapes me at the moment would be able to turn the company around.’

  ‘Well, we can’t worry about too many things out of our control,’ said Brett.

  ‘Exactly. The main thing is that PerzSolve is doing well and we launch PersCure. Onward and upward!’

  The three partners in PerzSolve gathered up their things and left the room to carry on their separate tasks. On the whole, it had been an upbeat meeting but there were still some knotty issues to iron out. Nick couldn’t wait to tell Polly about his potential trip to India. He thought back to his career at BioQex and before and could hardly believe how his career had taken off and had become so varied and interesting. Should he ever need to look for another job he would have an impressive CV.

  Chapter 5

  Christian Dalton, director at ClinTry, parked his car in front of the double garage of their five bedroomed detached house on the outskirts of Persford where they had lived for
about nine months. It was part of an exclusive development called The Hawthorns, built around ten years ago. The houses were all individually designed and each had large gardens front and back. As he was locking his BMW 5 series company car he paused to look with dismay at the garden which was growing with alarming vigour and becoming rather untidy. As his spirits sank his neighbour approached carrying a parcel.

  ‘Hi, Christian,’ said Bryony. ‘I was in the garden and saw you arrive. I took this parcel in for you today, it’s for Geraldine.

  ‘Thanks, Bryony,’ said Christian. ‘Looks like Geraldine has been using the plastic again!’ he joked.

  ‘Perhaps it’s a present for you?’ she said.

  ‘I doubt it,’ he scoffed. ‘It’s probably for Rufus or Persephone. Those children are spoilt,’ he said smiling.

  ‘What are children for if you can’t spoil them?’ she said. ‘Well, I’ll let you get inside. You’ve probably had a hard day.’

  Christian unlocked and deactivated the burglar alarm. He dumped the parcel unceremoniously on the hall table. He hoped it was something reduced or on offer as their finances were becoming rather stretched despite his generous salary. He’d previously held a senior position at a company in Hertfordshire, managing trials but his current job was a promotion and came with an attractive remuneration package of around one hundred thousand pounds salary. In addition to his company car, he received private health cover, life insurance and a generous pension scheme. The house prices in Persford were lower than in Hertfordshire and thus they had been able to trade their small nondescript three bedroomed house on a featureless housing estate for this much more impressive abode.

  Christian was a trained medic who after qualifying had spent a couple of years as a junior doctor before he decided to look for something which used his medical background but had more regular hours. He’d not been attracted to General Practice although a few years ago when the GP contracts had become extremely lucrative without the need to work weekends or provide out of hours cover he began to feel he had made the wrong decision. However, of late all the news reports were about doctors leaving General Practice in droves due to the increasing pressures they were under. All that was in the past now so it was no good looking back, he’d made his decision and he could hardly complain that he wasn’t admirably rewarded in his current position.