‘Sounds absolutely wonderful,’ said Chalmers. ‘A historic moment, you might say. But let me get this straight... neither of these drugs is new?’
‘They’ve both been around for a very long time,’ said Simmons. ‘It’s the way of using them that would be new, and the theory behind it.’
‘Mmm,’ said Chalmers. ‘So it’s not a new treatment we’d be selling... it’s a new technique... a new idea...’
‘We’re not interested in selling anything,’ said Simmons curtly. ‘We’d like to see the medics try this out as quickly as possible.’
‘Of course you would,’ said Chalmers, smiling indulgently as if the two men in front of him were babes in his particular wood. ‘But outside your ivory tower, chaps, things are different. Some of us have to live...’
‘In the real world. Yes, whatever that is,’ interrupted Simmons. ‘We just want this treatment to be given its chance.’
‘Of course, of course, I understand that,’ said Chalmers, holding up his hands. ‘But you must appreciate that it’s my job to protect the university’s financial interests in all of this. I would be failing in my job if I didn’t put certain safeguards in place. There are a lot of sharks out there.’
Simmons kept his tongue in check and Gavin managed to do the same, although the look in his eyes suggested it might be a close-run thing. ‘Of course,’ he said.
‘It seems to me that even if we have no right to patent any single component of the new treatment, there might well be a case for patenting the intellectual property — the idea if you like — but I’m no lawyer. I’ll have to pass this on to my colleagues, but I promise you I’ll do this as quickly as possible and get straight back to you. All right?’
‘I suppose it’ll have to be,’ said Simmons.
As they got into the car to drive back to the medical school, Simmons turned to Gavin and said, ‘Well done.’
‘What for?’
‘Not decking him.’
‘Only because I thought you were going to,’ said Gavin.
It brought the first and only laugh of the day.
It was Wednesday afternoon when Chalmers called back. ‘I’ve just had the report from our legal eagles. They think it might fly, but intellectual property is a tricky area. They’re going to have to refer the whole thing to specialist lawyers.’
‘Good,’ said Simmons. ‘How long will this take?’
‘Hard to say, but first things first, we need to get university approval for the application. Patent lawyers don’t come cheap. I’ll have to request the official go-ahead from Old College.’
‘Jesus,’ sighed Simmons. ‘And how long will that take?’
‘End of the week if I stress the urgency.’
‘I take it you heard that?’ Simmons asked Gavin who was sitting in his office. Gavin nodded. ‘Good to hear he’s going to stress the urgency,’ he said flatly.
‘Well, we’ll just have to grin and bear it. I suggest you go on with your experiments — establish the lowest doses possible of both drugs, and try to calculate the doses necessary to give to patients to achieve these levels. See what you can glean from old papers on polymyxin.’
‘Will do,’ said Gavin.
‘I’m going to try and persuade Graham to incorporate your stuff in the BBC programme. There’s nothing like a bit of publicity for concentrating people’s minds.’
It was late afternoon before Simmons could see Graham Sutcliffe, who had been acting as co-examiner in a PhD viva exam for one of the students downstairs. On hearing Simmons’ request he immediately voiced his reservations again, insisting that publicity would be premature and that proper procedures had to be followed.
Simmons listened politely until impatience overtook him and he interrupted. ‘I’m sorry, Graham, but you are missing the point here. Both Valdevan and polymyxin already have licences for human use — they’ve been through clinical trials and have been licensed for use both here and by the FDA in the USA. There is nothing to stop physicians trying this new treatment — if only they could get their hands on a supply of clinical grade Valdevan.’
‘Which Grumman Schalk have refused to provide.’
‘Exactly — and that’s why I’m asking you to include Gavin’s work in the television programme. We need to put pressure on the company. Public opinion can be a pretty strong weapon; it would level the playing field a bit.’
Sutcliffe appeared uncomfortable, but couldn’t think of a cogent argument against this. ‘I’m really not sure,’ was the best he could offer.
‘But you will consider it?’
‘We have until Thursday of next week before we have to agree the programme’s final format. I need hardly point out that if we were to incorporate Gavin’s work, someone else would have to stand down...’
‘How about Gerald Montague?’ said Simmons, almost immediately regretting letting his tongue run away with him.
Sutcliffe’s face darkened. ‘Gerald’s work on the temperature sensitive differences between tumour cells and healthy ones is showing great promise. Gerald Montague is a most distinguished researcher.’
Simmons remained silent.
‘I’ll let you know my decision.’
Simmons took this as his cue to leave. He stopped beside Gavin in the lab to say, ‘Graham will let us know about the TV programme,’ before going into his office and calling Jack Martin. ‘I need a beer.’
‘Drinking again?’ asked Jenny when her husband arrived home a little after seven.
‘Just the one, Constable...’
‘Lor luv us. Whatever’s going to become of me and the children?’ said Jenny, affecting a cockney flower-girl accent. ‘I take it Graham wasn’t too enthusiastic?’
‘He didn’t say no, but he would have liked to. I just don’t understand why everyone is being so negative about something that has the potential to be the first real breakthrough in years. It’s almost as if they see it as a threat.’
‘It is,’ said Jenny. ‘If you wipe out cancer, what are cancer researchers going to do? Thousands of people will be out of a job.’
Simmons, who obviously hadn’t looked at it in this way, stared at her for a moment before saying, ‘Jesus, I don’t even want to go there.’ He slumped down into a chair and held his head in his hands as he stared at the floor.
Jenny got up and stood behind him, massaging his shoulders. ‘Why don’t you take your shoes off and I’ll fix you a large whisky... which I bought instead of food for the children...’
Simmons put back his head and closed his eyes. ‘Time they were up chimneys anyway, earning their keep.’
‘How’s Gavin taking all this?’ asked Jenny, when they had finished their evening meal.
‘Pretty well, considering. He’s never exactly been a fan of the establishment, but I don’t think even he thought it could be this bad. He’s kept his cool this far, but he might snap if all this gets bogged down in the offices of patent lawyers.’
‘What about the TV programme?’
‘I might snap if they put in Gerald Montague’s crap instead of Gavin’s work. It’s our best chance of putting pressure on Grumman Schalk to start making Valdevan available again.’
‘What’s Montague’s stuff about anyway?’
‘He thinks tumour cells are more sensitive to heat than normal cells and has produced a million graphs and given a hundred seminars to show it.’
‘So, where’s he going with it?’
‘Nowhere, unless he intends dropping cancer patients in boiling water.’
‘But I take it no one will be pointing this out on the programme?’