Megan's Cure (13 page)

Chapter 26

MEGAN’S NECK WAS still sore where the man had gripped her so tightly she thought he was going to strangle the life out of her right then.
 
Every time she turned her head to the side, she felt it and a little of the terror resurfaced.
 
But she beat it back down quickly.

The first day at Walter’s cousin’s house outside of Charlotte had been awkward.
 
His cousin had shown them around the three-bedroom suburban house where he lived alone, fed them and made them comfortable.
 
But it was clear he found it unsettling that Walter was roaming alone with a young girl and that they were clearly on the run from something.
 

He didn’t want to know any details.
 
When he suddenly remembered an out-of-state client he needed to visit, he left it unclear exactly when he was going to return.
 
Megan wondered if he had made it up.

They were alone now in the house, finishing scrambled eggs and bacon with a small stack of buttered toast on a plate between them.
 

“I saw the girl again last night when I was asleep,” she said. “The one with yellow hair and the pigtails.
 
She was above me, looking down again.

“She said something this time,” Megan continued.
 
“She said, ‘Don’t worry.
 
Don’t worry.’ Twice. That was all she said.”

Walter Novak studied the 10-year-old girl as she went back to nibbling on a piece of toast.

“Megan,” he said.
 
“What do you remember about being in the hospital?”

She paused for a moment in mid-chew as her mind went back to that time.
 
How long ago had it been?
 
More than a year ago.
 
It seemed like another life.
 
She resumed eating her toast.

“Everyone was really nice to me,” she said.
 
“I had so many cards and balloons.
 
And the wigs.
 
They kept bringing in more and they looked so funny.
 
Red and blonde.
 
I think they just did it because it made me laugh.”
 
She smiled at the recollection.

“But you remembered me,” said Novak.
 
“Even though you were so sick.”

Megan nodded.

“I threw up a lot,” she said.
 
“My mom was there almost all the time.
 
She wouldn’t go home.
 
She almost lived in the room with me.

“I remember you said you would save me,” she continued.
 
“And you did.
 
How could I forget that?
 
And the whale.
 
You said it was a ‘Get Well’ whale.
 
I still have it.”

Novak smiled.
 
He had bought the stuffed black and white whale in the hospital gift store before seeing Megan for the first time.
 
He had thought of the “Get Well” nickname on his second visit, when she was starting to recover.

“And is that why you came with me?” asked Novak.

Megan looked up at the ceiling as she thought about it.
 
Then she smiled and nodded her head emphatically.

Novak looked down at his half mug of instant coffee that was now at room temperature.
 
He swirled it around, watched it stop moving and then took a taste.
 
He looked back at Megan.
 
He was remembering how tiny she looked when he first saw her lying inanimate, not moving at all.
 
If they had told him she was already dead, he would have believed it.
 
Most of her life seemed to have already bled out of her by then.

“You were the first one, Megan,” he said.
 
“The first one to have that medicine.
 
It was so new.
 
I wasn’t supposed to give it to anyone.”

Megan nodded her head, becoming more solemn.
 
She knew this was a serious moment.

“I know,” she said.
 
“I’m glad you did.
 
I know I’m lucky.”

“You’re a story now, Megan,” Novak said.
 
“You are you – Megan.
 
But inside you…in your body…you also have the story of that medicine.
 
What it did for you.
 
How it cured you.
 
How it changed some things in you.”

She nodded.

“It’s very complicated,” Novak continued.
 
“But there are people who don’t want that story to get out.
 
That’s why they are looking for us.
 
That’s why that man wanted to hurt you.”

Megan was silent as she thought for a moment.

“Can’t we just tell someone the story?” she said.
 
“Write it down.
 
And give them some blood.
 
Is the story in the blood like the cancer was?
 
Whenever I see the doctor they take more blood.
 
Isn’t that enough?”

Novak shook his head sadly.

“A test tube of blood isn’t a Megan,” he said. “And a success story that isn’t walking, talking and breathing isn’t much of a success story.
 
People can ignore and explain away a piece of paper with test results.
 
They can’t ignore someone who is living who wasn’t supposed to be,
 
especially if that person is still healthy two, five or ten years later.

“I understand a lot of what happened to you, Megan, but not everything.
 
There is still more that I can learn…that many people can learn…by studying you and then giving the medicine to more people.
 
You and your body are telling the story.”

Megan nodded in agreement.
 
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as her eyes scanned the room.
 
They stopped at a basket by the back door that was full of sports equipment.
 
A basketball.
 
Baseball glove and bat.
 
Croquet mallets.
 
Rackets of various types.

She looked back at Novak.

“Do you know how to play tennis?” she asked.

Chapter 27

SHORT AND STOCKY with closely cropped white hair, CEO Edwin Merrick sat in a low-back chair with a spectacular view of the San Francisco Bay when Troy Axmann was ushered into his office.
 
Merrick’s Italian loafers rested on an oak coffee table.
 
His tie was loose and he had a stack of business plans on his lap.

“Sit down, Troy,” instructed Merrick.
 
He gestured at the sofa on the other side of the coffee table.
 
Axmann had taken the company shuttle from his office at Merrick & Merrick’s research center at China Basin to the drug company’s top corporate offices in its downtown high rise two miles away.

Merrick picked up the stack of business plans and let them drop with a thud on the carpet next to his chair.
 

“Did you know we’re celebrating the company’s centennial in four more years?” he asked.
 
“Four years and we’re already starting to plan for it.
 
Lining up the goddamned U.S. Surgeon General.
 
Who knows if he’ll still be in office…or alive for that matter…in four years?”

Merrick shook his head.
 

“Well,” said Axmann.
 
“One hundred years.
 
That’s quite an achievement.”

“Yes,” said Merrick.
 
“Great Grandad Eddie and Great Grand Uncle Joe knew a thing or two about business.
 
Sons of bitches, too.
 
Had half the army quartermaster’s corps on the payroll.
 
That’s how they sold tons of bandages in World War I and even more sulfa drugs in World War II.”

 
At 63, Merrick held both the CEO and Board Chairman positions at Merrick & Merrick and was the latest in a long line of Merrick descendants and in-laws who had dominated the company’s decision-making since its founding.
 
In the last two decades, he had personally spearheaded Merrick’s aggressive acquisition of startups developing promising new medicines.
 
This had led to a parade of successful Merrick drugs targeting everything from heart disease and liver cancer to acne and flatulence, keeping the company well positioned among its Big Pharma competitors.

A shrewd evaluator of both human talent and promising science, Edwin Merrick had devoted much of his attention over the past decade to developing a beachhead in medical biotechnology.
 
He kept a close watch on technologies exploiting the explosion of knowledge of the location and function of the 30,000 human genes.
 
He had understood very early the potential for treatments that were both more powerful and more subtle – better cures with fewer side effects.
 
Within the company, probably only Troy Axmann had a better handle on the biotech startup scene and they met regularly to compare notes on possible acquisitions.
 

Merrick picked up a four-page memo sitting on a side table.
 
It was folded in half lengthwise.
 
He held it at the bottom and tapped the other end against his forehead as if transferring all of its content directly into his cerebral cortex.
 
He said nothing for a few seconds.

“Amazing,” he finally said in a tone much softer than his usual booming voice. “When I read this, I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was witnessing an historical moment.
 
It was as if I was watching the signing of the Declaration of Independence or Edison and the first light bulb.”

Axmann nodded his agreement.
 
Even as he had written the memorandum, he had felt a little stunned by the enormity of what he described.
 

In the search for genes that caused cancer – a hunt that the pharmaceutical industry was pursuing with a gold-rush fervor – Walter Novak had apparently discovered the mother lode.

Other researchers had discovered individual genes linked to cancers of the breast, colon, prostrate, ovaries and pancreas, among others.
 
But Novak had found one – a mutation – that seemed present in many if not most cancers.
 
Moreover, it seemed to operate as a master switch, enabling the genes tied to more specific types of tumors and organs to cause their damage.

Novak called this master, cancer-causing mutation the “C Factor.”
 
He had used this discovery to develop the Roxaten drug, which early testing had shown strongly effective against multiple cancer types.

Moreover, Novak had taken the C Factor a step further, taking drugs typically used in vaccines to stimulate the immune response against diseases ranging from hepatitis to common influenza and combining them with a C Factor component to build resistance to cells carrying the mutation.
 
The C Factor’s apparently powerful and widespread role gave this immunology research – conducted in laboratory and animal research so far – important implications.
 

“Just finding the common genetic flaw, the ‘C Factor,’ is a potential game changer,” said Merrick.
 
“Hell! It’s like finding the goddamn Holy Grail! Researchers have spent 30 years searching for this.”

“Right,” said Axmann, nodding his head in agreement.
 
“It’s a powerful concept.”

“The hell it is!” said Merrick, now returning to his normal full volume.
 
“And then coming up with the drug…Roxaten.
 
It’s a single-purpose cancer drug.
 
For most cases, the single medicine could do it.
 
It’s almost penicillin for cancer.

“And the immunology work,” continued Merrick.
 
“It’s halfway to a goddamn vaccine!
 
And it actually makes sense if it gives you real protection against the majority of cancers you might get.”

Troy Axmann had tried to prepare himself for the CEO’s response to his memo.
 
But it was hard not to feel diminished by it.
 
It was true, though, that compared to Novak’s Roxaten solution, his own work – and the Morceptin drug he had developed – seemed almost trivial.
 
It certainly held no potential to revolutionize the treatment of cancer as was the case for Roxaten.

“But what’s this about the problems with Novak’s work?” said Merrick.
 
“Why didn’t you spell it out?”

Axmann shrugged.

“I just thought it was better to keep it verbal,” he said, lowering his voice a bit as if they were telling secrets in a crowded room.
 
“Keep it off the record for now anyway.”

“Okay then,” said Merrick, quieting his voice just a bit.
 
“Let’s hear it.”

“We’re having some problems with the first patient trials,” said Axmann.
 
“Some evidence of liver and heart damage in some participants after the first treatment.
 
One fatal heart attack.
 
We had to stop the trial. “

Merrick shook his head and grimaced as if in pain.

What Axmann didn’t say is that all the problems had only occurred in the most seriously ill patients.
 
They were the ones confined to a hospital and with an IV bag dripping into their veins.
 
They were also the ones whose names and locations he could provide to his brother Gray along with instructions about which drugs that would produce the symptoms that would force a halt to the study.

“And then there’s the patent situation,” Axmann continued.

Merrick raised his eyebrows in alarm.

“Three years ago, Novak taught a seminar at the UCSF medical school,” said Axmann.
 
“He devoted a couple of sessions to his research.
 
He went into some detail about how it worked. These were molecular biology grad students.
 
He got into the science pretty deeply.”

“My god!” exclaimed Merrick.
 
“Non-disclosures?”

Axmann shrugged helplessly.

“It was a class, not a business meeting,” he said.
 
“And it gets worse.
 
The students combined their notes and shared them.”

Merrick nodded his head.

“Sure, we used to do that,” the CEO said.
 
“For the large classes, we’d compile a complete set, give it to a Kinko’s and anyone could order one.”

“Today, it’s all electronic, of course,” said Axmann. “Now, there are sites where you can just upload them.
 
You can probably find notes for half the classes at Harvard if you searched for it.
 
Novak’s class notes have been available – freely available – on this one site for three years.”

Merrick went pale and speechless, the latter a rarity for him.
 
Axmann knew he was contemplating the legal rights to one of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine slipping through his fingers.
 
What Axmann had described probably was enough to demolish any Roxaten patent on prior art grounds.
 
It had been publicly disclosed years earlier.

Axmann reached into his soft briefcase and pulled out the
coup de grace
.
 

“Here they are,” said Axmann.
 
“The notes on Roxaten.
 
The site where I got them is noted at the top.
 
It’s called ‘classnotes dot com.’
 
Pretty unoriginal.”
 

Merrick did not reach for them.
 
Axmann set them down on the coffee table in front of the CEO who seemed to make a conscious effort to avoid looking at them, as if he could deny the existence of the pages and what was contained in them.
 

When he left Merrick’s office, Axmann was sure the CEO would quickly overcome his denial and soon send the five pages of notes to Merrick & Merrick’s highly paid patent counsel.
 
He also was sure they would find the description of Roxaten disastrously complete.
 
After all, he had written it himself, inserted it into the original set of notes and replaced the old file on the ‘classnotes’ website.