Homo Sapiens

Unlike Dr. Laura’s neutral stance, Bill, the director of the lab, looked grim.

After all, their lab was a research institution dedicated to developing AIDS treatments. More than that, it was the lab of a commercial company, and such labs were the most pragmatic.

Qingye Medical’s launch of Ai Qingling was practically putting them out of business. It would have been a miracle if he could still be happy about it.

Holding several reports in his hand, Bill’s expression was clouded and uncertain.

Although Ai Qingling had relatively serious side effects, you couldn’t argue with the fact that it could cure AIDS, not just control it for a lifetime with medication.

In truth, many pharmaceutical companies nowadays didn’t like to develop curative drugs. They preferred to develop palliative ones.

The reason was self-evident.

It was all about making money.

Qingye Medical also had palliative drugs, but after discussing it with Liu Zhifan and the others, Ma Chi still felt it was necessary to launch a curative drug.

There were three objectives:

The first was to quickly acquire funds and strengthen the stability of the Hongsawaddy Yuan; the second was to rapidly make a big splash and build a name for Qingye Medical; and the third was to establish a technological advantage over other pharmaceutical companies.

Although Qingye Medical had merged with numerous medical supply and pharmaceutical production companies in Hongsawaddy, and was no longer small in scale, its reputation was still confined to Hongsawaddy.

This time, they launched the new test strips, Ai Qingling, and Rabies Killer precisely to expand their market and reputation.

The major corporations in Europe and America all produced drugs to mitigate AIDS. In this arena, even if Qingye Medical developed a safer and cheaper drug, it wouldn’t gain market access in Europe and America. At most, it could compete for market share with generic drug companies from Tianzhu.

Therefore, Ma Chi and Liu Zhifan chose to change the game. ’You pharmaceutical companies in Europe and America can drive your gasoline cars; I’ll just go straight to flying planes.’

Now, Bill could see Qingye Medical’s malicious intent.

The pharmaceutical companies in Europe and America could lobby various countries to prevent Qingye Medical’s drugs from entering their markets, but there were some regions they couldn’t completely control.

For example, Siam.

It bordered Hongsawaddy. Even if someone in Siam was out of their mind and banned Qingye Medical’s drugs, they couldn’t stop smugglers or patients from going directly to Hongsawaddy to buy them.

Given the custom of wearing gold and silver jewelry throughout Southeast Asia, even if patients didn’t have Hongsawaddy Yuan, they could use Gold to buy the medicine directly.

...

Sure enough, when Zhengda Company announced they had a drug that could cure AIDS for sale...

...the less than one thousand boxes of Ai Qingling in Zhengda Company’s pharmacies across Siam were quickly sold out. Even with a retail price as high as 500,000 Thai baht (equivalent to 150,000 Hongsawaddy Yuan) per box, the market’s fervent demand was unstoppable.

In Bangkok’s underground black market.

On the top floor of a small bar, a gang boss covered in colorful tattoos sat with his legs crossed, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. "Haaa... Ah Long, how many boxes did you get?"

"I got 12 boxes. The price has already shot up to around 700,000," his underling, Ah Long, quickly replied.

The boss tossed his cigarette butt into a cup of milk tea. "Offload them as soon as possible. Don’t get stuck with them. The Xie Family will probably increase their import volume soon."

The man in the suit, who had been eating stir-fried noodles on the side, wiped his mouth. "Boss, don’t just focus on this small-time business in Bangkok. We should find a way to contact people in Kampuchea, An Nan, and Malaysia. Then we can sell the Ai Qingling from here over there. After all, those places haven’t approved it for import."

"Huh? You’re a sharp one, little brother." The boss felt there was a lot of money to be made in this deal.

The man in the suit added a reminder, "Don’t forget, the retail price in Hongsawaddy is only 50,000 Hongsawaddy Yuan. The Xie Family’s import cost is definitely not high. If we can get a connection to Qingye Group, we might be able to get an even cheaper price."

"But the Xie Family has the exclusive distribution rights," the boss said, a little worried.

The man in the suit shrugged. "Their exclusive rights are only for Siam; they don’t cover other regions. We can totally contact people in the Golden Triangle and use the Mekong River to get into Lancang and Kampuchea."

His mouth dry from the thought of the enormous profits, the boss immediately started deploying his men and planning the Ai Qingling smuggling operation.

After all, this drug wasn’t exactly flour. The risk was much, much lower.

...

Meanwhile, seeing Ai Qingling’s sales figures, Zhengda Company didn’t care about killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Just one thousand boxes had brought them three hundred million Thai baht in profit.

Xie Bin, who had only been resting for a few days, hurriedly flew to Yangon again.

After quickly passing through the comprehensive security check at Yangon International Airport, Xie Bin headed straight for the Qingye Medical office building.

"It’s a great honor to see you again, Ms. Tian."

Tian Hemeng had likely already guessed the reason for his visit. She smiled and replied, "Let’s be direct. Just tell me what you need."

"I’ve come this time on behalf of Zhengda Company to purchase another 10,000 boxes of Ai Qingling and 100 boxes of Rabies Killer."

"That’s fine, but you’ll have to wait a while for the 10,000 boxes of Ai Qingling. Let me check the schedule..." Tian Hemeng flipped through her notebook.

"Our company’s maximum monthly production capacity is only 50,000 boxes. After accounting for the portion we use internally, and a recent order of 10,000 boxes from Homo Sapiens Company in Luzon, you’ll have to be scheduled for next month."

Xie Bin had no objection to this. After all, a pharmaceutical company couldn’t just expand its production lines indefinitely. This was especially true for a curative drug like this one; suddenly producing a massive batch would not only disrupt the market but would also lead to the rapid decommissioning of the production line.

Based on the current global number of over thirty million people infected with AIDS, and adding in those who have hidden their status or are unaware they are infected, the potential consumer base is estimated to be around forty million.

At a production rate of tens of thousands of boxes per month, it would take Qingye Medical about 800 months to meet global market demand.

Of course, this was a projection under ideal conditions.

In reality, Ai Qingling’s current factory and retail prices were clearly on the high side, and some patients simply couldn’t afford it.

Therefore, Xie Bin was very satisfied with Qingye Medical maintaining a supply of several tens of thousands of boxes per month.

After all, scarcity creates value. If they were to suddenly produce several million boxes, the market price would surely plummet, and the losses would outweigh the gains.

A competent businessman would never do such a thing.

Doing this was also a way to avoid pushing the pharmaceutical companies in Europe and America to desperate measures. After all, their palliative drugs could still be sold for now.

Currently, the only places that had approved Ai Qingling for sale were Hongsawaddy, Siam, and Luzon. Other regions would likely have to wait for some time.

This was especially true for the Europe and America Region. In fact, large pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson were currently very thankful for Hongsawaddy’s Hongsawaddy Yuan trade policy, which prevented Qingye Group’s drugs from entering the markets of Europe and America on short notice.

After Xie Bin and Tian Hemeng signed the contract, he didn’t rush back to Siam but instead continued to negotiate other business matters.

For instance, Qingye Medical was planning to purchase a batch of drugs and production lines from Zhengda Company.

After all, under the new contract, Zhengda Company needed to pay Qingye Medical 502.5 million Hongsawaddy Yuan. For such a large sum, Zhengda Company couldn’t possibly use Gold, so they could only resort to a product-for-product exchange.

And this time, Qingye Medical had its eyes on Zhengda Company’s generic drugs and production lines.

Even second-hand production lines were acceptable. Qingye Medical’s relationship with pharmaceutical companies and equipment manufacturers in Europe and America wasn’t good, so they could only pick up Zhengda’s used production lines.

In any case, for drugs that could treat common illnesses, developing them in-house would waste time and money. It was simply better to buy ready-made production lines.

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