The 22nd act: Modern people sell jade, Republic of China sells penicillin
As time passed day by day, it had unknowingly reached the end of August.
"Brother Luo, now that the business of Hui Chun Tang is so good, how can you say close it just like that? There are still many people outside waiting for goods, how do we explain this?" Zhang Wu looked at his subordinates with a regretful face as they closed the door of Hui Chun Tang. He was depressed in his heart - he had just adapted to his new role and developed some interest in his career, wanting to achieve something when it suddenly closed?
Putting aside the interest, that one blue bean can be worth 100 yuan! 100 yuan in cash, villagers work hard for a year and can't earn so much money, but there are still many fools willing to spend money to buy it. Counting the silver coins every day has almost become a habit. Now suddenly closing the shop, not earning this kind of money from fools, Zhang Wu really couldn't understand why.
Why did he close the shop? The reason is that Roger has run out of money! Not that there's no money on this side, but his savings in modern times have been depleted!
Roger patted Zhang Wu's shoulder and said, "Explanation? Just say that the production of medicinal materials is too expensive and in short supply. For the time being, we can't produce enough products. The pharmacy is actively collecting raw materials now. Please ask customers to wait patiently. When the raw materials arrive, we will reopen!"
It's not entirely a lie to say that those blue pills are actually modern Viagra, repackaged and mixed with various Chinese herbal ingredients. If Roger can't afford Viagra anymore, isn't that just a shortage of raw materials?
This is also an unavoidable thing, now Roger only has more than 10,000 yuan of emergency funds left in his hands. If he doesn't cut off the sales work of blue small medicine pills decisively, then when he returns to modern times again, he can only drink northwest wind.
Now, Roger is eagerly waiting for the kind brother who went to Myanmar to sell medicine in the style of yearning for stars and moons.
……
Finally, on the fifth day of the closure of Hui Chun Tang, Tan Ni's people returned from Myanmar, bringing back the Burmese old-pit jade that Roger had been thinking about day and night!
In Tan Ni's room, Roger was playing with the jade in his hand with great interest. Although he didn't know anything about identifying jade, he knew that these genuine old-pit jades in his hands would definitely have a satisfactory price.
"Dear Luo, I've brought everything you wanted. What's your plan next? Are you going to take these nice stones to Guangzhou to sell them? If so, I believe I can be of help."
"It's not a natural thing, I have my own sales channels, so don't bother with the jade business. But what I really want to know is when that batch of ordered machines will arrive? On my side, the road has been laid out and the construction site has been cleared, if the machine arrives too late, it may affect the progress."
Regarding the construction progress of the factory, Roger is very concerned. After all, the sooner it goes into production, the sooner he can make money, and the sooner his own business can expand. Once penicillin is settled, he will timely launch sulfonamide drugs and grasp the golden mountain of antibiotics tightly in his hands.
Tanith's concern for his own future was apparently no less than Roger's: "Those machines have been in operation for some time, and by calculating the time, it should be around these days. They are the best equipment in the world! Absolutely can meet your requirements! Produce the best divine medicine!"
Money can make the devil push a mill, originally this batch of equipment from ordering to production takes some time, after all, the manufacturer will not hoard such large-scale equipment, basically it is produced only when there is an order. Tan Ni really couldn't wait, the sooner the business started, the better, so he directly found a chemical plant that ordered the equipment and bought the newly ordered equipment at a high price. The other party didn't mind losing some time and was happy to make a profit, so this equipment could be settled so quickly.
"I hope so... Roger let out a sigh and then said, "Let's start looking for an agent now. We can't possibly sell that divine medicine to the whole world on our own."
"Do we need to rush so much?" Tan Ni furrowed his brow, "The factory is not even built yet, and there's no sign of the workers. Not to mention debugging and other issues later on. And industrial production conditions are different from those in a lab. Solving all these problems will take time. By the time we actually produce something, it'll probably be a long while."
Roger nodded and said, "Indeed, this factory still needs a long time to truly produce penicillin. It's not just a matter of machines, but also the training of workers, which will take up a lot of time. However, any new drug, no matter how amazing it is, won't have a huge sales volume in the early stages. Fortunately, I still have some stock left over from previous production, which should be enough to support us through this initial period. By the time everyone recognizes the value of our medicine and the factory is ready for mass production, we'll be fine."
That's right, Roger planned to buy some penicillin from Modern first before the factory was built. Penicillin is not like Viagra, it's very cheap, 8 million units of penicillin injection cost only 5.4 yuan, and the wholesale price for 1 billion units is 120 yuan! While Pfizer's first penicillin factory in the world had an initial monthly output of only 450 million units! That was the penicillin that was worth more than gold in history!
That means Roger only needs to spend a hundred or so dollars to get the equivalent of a factory's production! How could he possibly run out of stock!? Just buy some diluent and it's done!
For the pharmaceutical industry, more than 90% of the cost is R&D expenses (in China, just replace R&D with PR fees), developing new drugs in modern times is like gambling. To develop a new drug, companies like Pfizer and Bayer invest billions or even tens of billions of dollars, and once it's developed, they have to sell it at an exorbitant price to recoup their investment. In fact, the raw materials aren't that expensive; the key is that selling medicine requires recouping R&D expenses.
At the same time, any development work will have failures. If they can't be eliminated after failure, then the billions or tens of billions of dollars invested cannot be wasted in vain. Naturally, the investment in failed drugs also needs to be earned back by successful drugs, which further increases the price of new drugs!
So, don't look at Pfizer, Bayer and other foreign top pharmaceutical companies as being so powerful. As long as they dare to develop two or three drugs in a row that fail, they will inevitably go bankrupt!
But for Roger, there was no such worry at all. The drugs he chose were bound to be successful ones that had been verified by history, and he didn't have to worry about failure. All the craftsmanship came from modern times, so there was no research and development cost at all. So, for him, the profit from selling the drugs he produced was almost like getting something for nothing! He dared to sell a 100-yuan drug for a profit of 99 yuan and 90 cents!
"In that case I'll contact the agent right away. You have to give me some samples, only facts can make those stubborn guys cooperate with us."
"That's no problem." Roger snapped his fingers and continued with a smile, "In addition to this, I also need some instructors! Preferably Germans."
"Captain!? What are you going to do with those!?" Tan Ni's eyes widened in surprise. A German instructor like this was something that even a few warlords in the whole of China couldn't get, what could he possibly do with such a small factory?!
Roger stuck out his index finger and shook it, saying: "I don't like fate being in someone else's hands! Suppose you're walking on the streets of New York with a rope tied around one million dollars, and every passerby can see those green notes in your hand, wouldn't you want to have a gun in your hand?!
"No! One gun?! What a joke! I need a bodyguard squad!"
"That's right! But our wealth is not just one million US dollars, so I need at least a small army. I don't want my factory to be like goods in a shop window that anyone can come and take a look around. The production of penicillin must have the strictest confidentiality and protection!"
