Just like Yang Xu had said, after Star Sky Technology expressed they were interested in cooperating with a pharmaceutical company, numerous offers came in the mail.
There were at least four or five calls a day, which annoyed Chen Yushan.
Chen Yushan called Lu Zhou and couldn’t help but complain.
“You plan on selling health supplements or what?”
Lu Zhou knew what she was referring to, so he smiled and replied, “… I just found some by-products in an experiment. I thought they were quite interesting. So, I plan on benefiting the public.”
“… I’m the sacrifice then? I’m being drowned by these calls.”
Lu Zhou: “Yeah, thanks.”
Chen Yushan said, “It’s fine, this is my job. But next time, remember to give me a heads-up. I’m still busy with the state aerospace project. When I suddenly got a call, I thought it was a supplement marketing scam.”
Lu Zhou said, “I’ll give you a heads-up next time.”
“Yeah, it’s fine. Oh yeah, I researched some of the companies that called us and listed some of the more qualified companies. I’ve sent the list to your email. Look through it if you have time.”
“Okay, I’ll look at it right away.”
After Lu Zhou hung up the phone, he opened his email and found the report sent by Chen Yushan.
He had to admit, the report was very detailed. Not only did it contain information such as market value, business model, and operating status, but some of the more esoteric pieces of information were also listed in the report.
After carefully reading through the report, Lu Zhou chose Hengrui Medicine as their partner.
It was one of the few Chinese pharmaceutical companies that were willing to invest in drug research and development. The company was owned and controlled by its parent company, Hengrui Group. It had the largest antitumor production base in China. It was also involved in research on diabetes, heart disease, and cancer drugs.
In fact, other than Hengrui Medicine, there were many foreign-owned pharmaceutical companies that were suitable partners. For example, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Roche. These were all top-100 companies.
However, most of these companies’ research and development units were located overseas. After what happened with Sarrot’s laboratory, and with the possible foreign policy risks, Lu Zhou carefully excluded these companies as potential partners.
As for why Lu Zhou chose Hengrui Medicine, that was mainly because it had its own research and development team. The Jinling Institute for Advanced Study planned on entering the biochemistry field, so there were many future cooperation opportunities between the two.
The specific cooperation agreement was negotiated by a dedicated patent management team. The Jinling Institute for Advanced Study was only responsible for sending the registered patent samples to the other party.
Two weeks had gone by… Lu Zhou nearly forgot the whole Hengrui Medicine thing when someone suddenly came to visit him…
“Hello, Professor Lu! It’s a pleasure to meet you!”
Inside his office at the Institute for Advanced Study, Lu Zhou met Professor Zhang Jiafu, the Chief Technology Officer of Hengrui Medicine’s new research and development department. Since he also taught at Zhi University, he had the “professor” title.
After Professor Zhang met Lu Zhou, he extended his right hand and shook Lu Zhou’s hand.
“Hello, you’re Professor Zhang, right? Please sit.”
“You’re too kind!”
After some small talk, Professor Zhang sat on the sofa.
Lu Zhou’s office assistant came over with a pot and poured two cups of tea.
Professor Zhang took a sip of the hot tea and put down the cup. Without wasting any time, he started to talk about business.
“Everyone knows that we are currently developing a diabetes treatment drug. After we received the component analysis report and sample from you guys, we tested it in our laboratory, and…” he gulped and said, “the clinical trial was shocking.”
Three years of research, and tens or even hundreds of thousands of compounds. Countless trial and error. Professor Zhang never expected that the answer would come from the Institute of Biochemistry, which was established less than a year ago.
This…
Made Professor Zhang slightly uncomfortable.
After hearing this, Lu Zhou was astounded.
“This thing can cure diabetes?”
The f*ck?
“Is this worth a Nobel Prize?”
However, after hearing Lu Zhou, Professor Zhang had an awkward expression on his face.
“… A complete cure is unlikely, but if it really is a cure, the Nobel Prize Committee might consider giving you another award. Even if it’s not a complete cure, we found that the amino acid has synergistic effects with insulin and insulin analogs. It accelerates glycolysis and lowers blood sugar levels.
“We conducted experiments in diabetic mice, and we found that the amino acid directly prevents islet β-cell damage, and it maintains its structural integrity and helps endocrine function while also effectively inhibiting streptozotocin-induced islet β apoptosis.”
Lu Zhou’s expression gradually became more and more serious.
He knew about streptozotocin. It was listed on the WHO list of 2B carcinogens. However, the scary part wasn’t its carcinogenic properties, but its ability to induce diabetes in many organisms. It was the culprit that caused diabetes in many diabetic patients.
Professor Zhang said in a serious manner, “We plan on using this amino acid as our newly developed drug. Can you tell us what you named the amino acid?”
“Name?” Lu Zhou paused for a second and said, “Can’t you guys just use its chemical nomenclature?”
Professor Zhang paused for a second and said, “Have you not named it yet?”
Lu Zhou: “… I haven’t thought about it.”
In the component analysis report, Xu Wenhao used the chemical nomenclature to name this amino acid. In order to save time, Lu Zhou abbreviated the name into letters and numbers.
Professor Zhang said, “If you don’t know how to name it, just name it from wherever you extracted the amino acid from. That’s more convenient.”
Lu Zhou was a little worried.
What do I do now?
I got it from a can of coke, I can’t call it coke-aline, right?
Hmm…
Wait a minute, it sounds pretty good.
Lu Zhou said, “Let’s call it cokealine!”
“Cokealine?” Professor Zhang paused for a second. “Is there… a reason?”
Lu Zhou: “No reason… Can I not call it cokealine?”
Professor Zhang said, “No, of course you can.”
It’s just kind of a weird name…
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Okay then, I think it’s a good name.”
Professor Zhang wanted to convince Lu Zhou otherwise, but it seemed like Lu Zhou had no intention of changing his mind. Professor Zhang shook his head and gave up.
After Professor Zhang walked out of the office, he looked at the institute researcher who brought him to Lu Zhou’s office. He asked, “Don’t you think… Professor Lu has weird naming habits?”
He wanted to say “horrible”, but he felt like it would be disrespectful, so he changed it to “weird”.
After hearing Professor Zhang’s words, the researcher smiled.
“… You’ll get used to it.”
Professor Zhang: “…”
