Only a lunatic would apply for a patent on penicillin
"Alright, Consul Tennyson, don't bother about how the penicillin is produced. You only care about the money anyway." Roger didn't feel like explaining his plan to Tennyson and couldn't explain it either, because he simply didn't trust this foreigner. Their current cooperative relationship was more of a mutual utilization.
"Remember two key points: First, do not apply for a patent! Second, the name of this medicine from now on is Antibiotic X. As for the name penicillin I mentioned earlier, it must be kept absolutely confidential, better yet, forget about it! I don't want anyone to associate the origin of the drug with its name!"
"Changing the name is one thing, but what a joke! Not applying for a patent?! Are you crazy?!" Tan Ni thought Roger had gone mad with his request. If they didn't apply for a patent, what if their miracle drug was counterfeited? Wouldn't all of his investment be down the drain?!
Fleming shook his head, explaining: "If I had applied for a patent that would have been the real madness. Do you know what applying for a patent means? It means we'd have to make public all our secrets about penicillin! And after twenty years the patent would run out and protection would cease! Patents are only for twenty years, but if we could keep the secret for thirty years?"
"If it's like that, then maybe it's better not to apply for a patent, but... what if... what if..."
"I can guarantee that even if every single person in our factory, from the janitor to the manager, were a business spy, as long as I'm not there, no one would be able to produce penicillin!"
This is completely guaranteed because the factory does not produce penicillin at all, and even if it wanted to, it would not be able to produce it.
"Alright, since you're so confident, let's do it your way. However, if we find out that someone else is developing penicillin, we'll apply for a patent immediately!"
"There's no problem with this at all!"
In fact, there was another very important reason why Rogers was determined not to apply for a patent - the significance of industrial production of penicillin was not just that a magical life-saving drug was produced, but it pioneered a brand new model for discovering antibiotics - finding new drugs from microbial metabolites!
After the success of penicillin, researchers took it as an example and screened for drugs from various microbial samples. New drugs emerged like mushrooms after a spring rain, squeezing out a large market share of penicillin in a short period of time!
If penicillin is patented, the source of penicillin must be disclosed! Other pharmaceutical companies will also necessarily understand that there is a trick to screening antibiotics from microorganisms. As long as they have this trick, they can easily find new drugs to replace penicillin!
In this way, Roger can't monopolize the business at all. When there was only penicillin as a lifesaving medicine, it could be sold for a sky-high price of three gold bars per branch. But when terramycin, streptomycin, erythromycin, and XX-mycin are so abundant that they make your eyes dizzy, penicillin can only be sold at a cabbage price!
It can be said that from the moment the patent application for penicillin was successful, the exorbitant profits of penicillin no longer existed! It's even possible that they could only make money for ten years! How could Roger let such a thing happen!? Therefore, until the very last moment, Roger would not consider what kind of patent it was!
It turned out that Rogers' measures to change the name of the drug, not apply for a patent, and purchase chemical synthesis equipment were effective until the late 1950s when Rogers voluntarily applied for patents for more than 100 kinds of antibiotics including penicillin. Until then, no one had discovered the secret of penicillin!
Everyone thought penicillin was a synthetic product, but it is actually a metabolic product of microorganisms; everyone thought penicillin was produced by chemical synthesis, but it was actually produced by fermentation; even in the Roche factory, everyone thought they were producing penicillin, but they were actually producing auxiliaries for penicillin production.
……
Although reluctantly agreed to Roger's two requirements, Tan Ni's heart hung up, and a thought suddenly flashed in his mind, and he asked urgently: "Are you sure that the production process of this medicine is not problematic? Although your major is pharmacy, but laboratory and factory are completely two concepts!"
"No problem at all! I've got professional help, absolutely no problem, you can rest assured!" Roger patted his chest to guarantee, he hadn't been idle for the past half month, treating Mrs. Tanny only took four days, and with the remaining time, Roger returned to modern times, spent a few hundred bucks, bought the full set of technical documents for penicillin production, found a pharmaceutical factory to examine the production process in detail, got the specifications and list of required equipment, and purchased industrial-scale high-yielding penicillin strains for future preparation of a real penicillin production plant in the Republic of China. Fortunately, it was an outdated and not very profitable thing like penicillin, buying the strain along with training only cost 10,000 yuan.
What's more, the factory he is building now doesn't even produce penicillin!
For antibiotics that require microbial fermentation to produce, even with the most advanced production technology, without a high-yielding strain, it is futile. The reason why penicillin was difficult to mass-produce at first was not only a problem of production technology, but also the lack of a high-yielding strain. The penicillin strains used today are super varieties that have been cultivated and mutated over decades, with yields far higher than those of naturally isolated original strains under the same conditions.
On March 1, 1943, the Pfizer penicillin factory was completed and put into production. The new factory, which had 14 huge fermentation tanks of 7,500 gallons each, could produce up to 45 million units per month, more than five times the original expected output. Nowadays, a large dose of penicillin is just 1.6 million units, and an IV drip can easily exceed tens of millions of units; treating a headache or fever would consume an entire month's production in the United States! For penicillin, the most fundamental factor in increasing production is still the improvement of the bacterial strain; without a good bacterial strain, even if you were the king of heaven who traveled back in time, you wouldn't be able to make big money with penicillin.
Although still somewhat uneasy, now that things have come to this point, Tan Ni has no other choice but to take the road to darkness.
Tan Ni let out a sigh and said, "I'll take care of the mechanical things right away. If there's a shortage of funds, I'll think of a way to make it work, maybe borrow some from family members, that shouldn't be a problem. However, aside from the pharmaceutical factory business, I also want to discuss another matter with you."
Seeing Tanny's worried expression, Roger smiled and said, "What? Has the compensation issue blown up?"
